Counted as Clay Jars
by Indarae
Summary: With Dawn’s father absent after Buffy’s death, care for the younger Summers falls to one Rupert Giles. However, even as life returns to normal, pieces of his past come back to threaten the future.
1. Material Memories

**Title: Counted as Clay Jars**

Author: Indarae

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Joss's and Lady Rowling's. I merely borrow for fun.

Pairings: So far, none. Could be some Dawn/Harry or some Dawn/Draco, but I doubt anything permanent will come of it.

Summary: With Dawn's father absent after Buffy's death, care for the younger Summers falls to one Rupert Giles. However, even as life returns to normal, pieces of his past come back to threaten the future.

"See Zion's precious sons,

Once worth their weight in finest gold,

Now counted as clay jars,

The work of any potter's hand."

-Lamentations, 4:2

A/N: Buffy AU, with spoilers up until and including "The Gift" (as well as events presumed to happen between that and the S6 premiere). Harry Potter, with spoilers up to and including "Order of the Phoenix." The dates are a bit off: they've been adjusted so that Dawn is fifteen and Harry is sixteen in the same calender year; there shouldn't be any jarring changes. Everything should fit accordingly.

Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Dawn tried to bring her Mom back to life, Buffy died, the Buffybot took her role, Giles talked about returning to England, Dawn's dad's a no-show, Willow researched spells to bring Buffy back, and Xander and Anya got engaged but kept it quiet.

Previously in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Sirius died, Harry whined and went back to the Dursleys, Lucius Malfoy went to prison, Lupin never visibly mourned, and Dumbledore became fallible.

Part One — Material Memories

June 15, 2001

Sunnydale, CA

Rupert Giles rolled up his sleeves and splashed water onto his face, trying to cool down after lugging boxes of her things down into his car. Willow and Tara had suggested moving everything to Giles' flat on their own power, thus eliminating the need for a U-Haul, but the sheer amount of things She'd accumulated over 20 short years necessitated so many short trips that the sheer amount of petrol burned was easily enough to cover the entire cost of a U-Haul rental. He'd thought Her a bit silly and materialistic when he'd first gotten to know Her, patiently (and sometimes not-so-patiently) helping Her learn what it meant to be Called, but now — as Her body rested in the ground and Her soul in peace — he couldn't bear to part with a single material memory.

Her father hadn't attended the funeral. His body had turned up in the Rhine on June 4th, involved in some illicit drug operation, leaving Dawn parentless and guardian-less, and leaving Rupert to discover the clause in Joyce's Will, naming him as Dawn's guardian should anything happen to the girl's father. And so, green card renewed and application for citizenship in the works after the Council's threats earlier in the year, Her house was being sold so that Dawn could move into the extra bedroom in Giles' flat and he could be the parent he'd always wanted to be for the girl.

Even if he wouldn't get the chance to be Her father anymore, the one he'd loved like a daughter and lost his livelihood for. Daughter of his heart - his Slayer. Besides his duty, he couldn't go home to England anyway, not when She rested eternally in the Sunnydale cemetery.

"Maybe you should wear a t-shirt or something," Dawn commented, leaning against the doorway. "It's like, what, a hundred twenty degrees out, or something? Are you British people immune to heat? I bet you don't even own a pair of shorts." Dawn certainly wasn't dressed to die of the heat — if she'd really been his daughter, he wouldn't be caught dead allowing her out of the house in shorts that short or a tank top covering that little flesh. Perhaps a conversation would be in order... despite the fact Anya had just passed by, wearing even less... Role models. The issue was with her role models.

He gave a sigh and shook his hands over the sink, trying to dry them, as all the towels were packed away or already in his flat. "Dawn, it's barely ninety. It's cool today, compared to last week. And, for your information, I do own a pair of shorts. I simply prefer to look presentable when we visit the social worker to finalize the papers. And along those lines, perhaps clothing that functions to conceal some skin, rather than mere decoration, might be more appropriate for this rather important meeting than what you're currently wearing...?"

"Anya's wearing less than me," Dawn countered. Heaving another sigh, Rupert snatched his glasses from his face and cleaned them irritably. He should've expected it. After all, Dawn was fifteen. When HE'd been fifteen, he was calling on dark powers and considering a life devoted to pure evil — not that he'd let Dawn know that. Before he could respond, however, Dawn went on. "You should definitely make sure you roll your sleeve down, if you're so worried about what they think of you. Did you get a new tattoo? You didn't have it yesterday... It's wicked cool."

Shoving the wire frames back onto his face, he stared down at his arm. It hadn't been there yesterday, indeed. Nor had it been there when he'd dressed that morning. The red shape on his arm, in fact, hadn't been there since October 31st, sixteen years earlier, when it had vanished in a shooting pain that woke him from a sound sleep in his father's Bath manorhouse. It was supposed to have been the end of the one who branded him with it. The papers had reported the young hero's triumph and the deaths of the parents. "Oh, bloody hell," he murmured, eyes locked on the red outline.

Dawn made some shocked reply, but Rupert couldn't bring himself to apologize for his language. It had been ages since he'd sworn, especially in front of a child... but if the mark had reappeared, a few naughty words were the least of his problems. "Dawn... Dawn, I don't think we'll be able to make that trip to Bath, this summer. Or, perhaps, for a very long time."

"Huh?" He watched out of the corner of his vision as she glanced from his face to the mark on his arm. "Your dad didn't want you to get a tattoo? Or — or is it that Mark of Eyghon-y thing? Why can't we go to England, Giles, I really want to see Big Ben and double-decker buses, and Prince William -"

"I need you to not ask a lot of questions about this right now. I need you to run and find Willow and Tara... this is an emergency, Dawn." His ward scurried off in a panic, and though he felt a bit guilty for dismissing her in such a rush, the skeletal eyes staring back at him from the flesh of his inner arm filled him with such a terror that he pushed everything else aside. Skull and snake. The Dark Mark.

It seemed that somehow, impossibly, Lord Voldemort was back — and the Dark Lord didn't take kindly to deserters.

"What's that, Severus?" Minerva McGonagall asked, peering over her colleague's shoulder at the breakfast table. It was late in the summer holiday, and even the normally reclusive Potions Master had taken to coming out of his dungeons to attend breakfast. It wasn't that he longed for company — he was taking his time stacking books pertaining to his topic of research so that when he took his seat, he'd be invisible to Sybil Trelawney, if she happened to sweep in late, as usual. He came for the food. Though he'd be loath to admit it, he enjoyed snagging a pastry or two from the dishes near the Headmaster; foods he'd never consider ordering for himself. Despite what the students seemed to think of him, he hadn't reached the age of 'crotchety old man' yet — he still enjoyed a sweet or two.

Or maybe it was just a mid-life crisis.

He sighed off his thoughts and shook his head, reminding himself of Minerva's irritating presence at his shoulder. The list in his hands was longer than he'd expected. Twelve names of those unaccounted for since the fall of the Dark Lord. "Missing Death Eaters," he replied shortly. "It's for Albus."

"Many were your classmates," Minerva noted, slipping the list from his hands before he could fold it away or protest. It unnerved him, the way she could always do just what he wanted least in any situation. Now, it was simply interfering in his business. "Thomas Sutton, Diedre Page, Phillip Henry... they were all Class of '74. Ethan Rayne and Rupert Giles were Class of '76. Jeanne Kilde, Hector Reach... Malcolm Archer... isn't he dead?"

"None of the twelve were heard from after that Halloween, some even earlier. They disappeared from the wizarding world. I'm attempting to learn of their fates from a Muggle source, but it's more difficult than I'd thought." Severus sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "And yes, I do believe Archer is dead. And Henry and Sutton for certain; I found obituaries in the Times. The others..."

"Why are we looking for missing Death Eaters?" Minerva countered loudly.

It was the 'we' she'd so innocently added into the discourse that irritated Severus the most. It was his job to complete, not hers. There was no 'we' in this mess. He took a quick glance up and down the table, measuring the other instructors present — only Dumbledore seemed interested in their conversation, as Susan Hooch was telling her famous bawdy jokes to Filius Flitwick and Cassie Sinistra at the other end of the Staff Table. "Missing Death Eaters may be deserters. And deserters may take our side... and they may agree to spy from the inside, as they aren't obviously against the Dark Lord. As I have yet to make a positive contact with the Dark Lord, we may need more help." And not just help — a replacement, should something go terribly wrong. It seemed more than likely it would. Severus pushed the thought aside.

"Right, then. I'll look into Page, Rayne, and Giles. Miss Granger might be able to offer some research tips, you know. Having a Muggleborn to aid in the search might be a boon, when your quarry has no doubt learnt to blend in..." She pulled over a slip of paper and snagged the quill right from Severus' hand. It was all he could do not to scream and wring the bloody woman's neck.

"I do not work with students on matters of this level of importance. Not only could a mistake cost lives, but obtaining the girl's help could put her in a very serious amount of danger. Now stop bothering me and let me complete my task!" he snapped, grabbing the quill back. At the end of the table, he caught sight of Susan and Filius watching their interaction carefully, both fielding broad smirks. He didn't want to think about whatever disgusting notions the pair of troublemakers might have come up with over the past moments... After all, Susan's elder son was a cross-dressing cabby and Filius had been seen in questionable company more times than Severus cared to contemplate. He scowled and ducked his head behind the piles of books, glaring at Minerva to back off.

It was too late. The Head of Gryffindor House had her partial list. "Fine, then. I'll find these three in my own way. Page... she was Ravenclaw, yes? Binns was Head of House, then. He keeps on thinking that Parvati and Padma Patil are Diedre Page... perhaps he knows of her life or death? And... Rayne and Giles were Slytherins, correct? They're only a year your senior. All the information you can give me will help..."

With a sigh, Severus dropped the quill and rubbed the bridge of his nose reflexively. "Correct. Rayne and Giles were Slytherins. Rayne was of a pureblooded family of limited funds. No siblings and his parents didn't survive the war. Aurors took them out in his 5th year. He didn't take it well, and their death drove him Dark. He took Giles with him. Rupert was a second child, aristocrats in Bath, I think. Or Salisbury. Blood about as pure as my own, I think. Giles, of course, wouldn't be inheriting the fortune, so his father was pressuring him into some family occupation... was it with the Unspeakables? I can't remember, it was too many years ago... but when Rayne started dabbling in the Dark, Giles did too, rebelling I think. Diedre Page I don't remember."

Minerva nodded and tucked the parchment away. "Well then, I'll let you know as soon as I track them down."

Severus sneered and flicked his texts open again. It didn't matter whether she found them or not — so long as she'd just leave him alone. The Dark was rising fast, and it was no place for a Gryffindor.

However, before he could get any work done, he caught sight of Sybil entering the Great Hall. He tried to make his escape, but it was too late — she sank into a chair at his side and proceeded to proclaim that his fate was to fall in love with a devilishly attractive Diviner. Susan and Filius were laughing. Cursing the urge that brought him to breakfast, Severus sank lower in his seat and regretted the day he decided an Avada Kedavra was too Unforgivable.

Tara and Willow had joined Rupert at the flat almost immediately following the meeting at Sunnydale Town Hall, with the last loads of Buffy's things, all folded nicely and packed away in the closet. "Where's the Buffybot?" he asked shortly, closing the door behind the pair. Dusk was coming, and with it the denizens of the night. The Slayer could no longer protect them.

"Recharging. After that last fight, I don't know if it'll be up to full specs for a bit... Are you sure this is the best of ideas, Giles? Cause if the social workers get word of Buffy running all over the place, they might wonder why she's not got custody of Dawnie... and did all the papers get signed and all? Is it all done?" Willow babbled, and Giles let her. It seemed to calm her. And with the news he'd soon be passing on, any comfort would be a gift.

"It's done. Dawn is officially my daughter. However, that isn't at all connected to what's happened. Do you — do you remember when Ethan Rayne was in town? My schoolmate who invoked the god Janus?" He removed his glasses and cleaned them absentmindedly, weighing out the amount of information he wanted to impart. Too much and he'd risk alerting Willow to things better kept secret...

Willow nodded. "You and he did all the demon invoke-y stuff, right?"

She made it sound so simple. "Yes, well... that wasn't all we did. I'm afraid another of my bad choices might come back to haunt us. It's possible being in America will keep this away from me, but should figures in black robes and white masks show up, I want you to get away. Come find me, but get away before they can see you."

"White masks?" Tara asked skeptically. "What kind of demon are they? What kills them?"

"Not demon. Human. Dark wizards, the whole lot of them. Their leader has... certain reasons for wanting me dead, or back in England." Back in England, killing and torturing Muggles like Joyce, or Muggleborns like Willow, or Halfbloods like Tara. The Hellmouth might mask his magic, and it had been years since he'd used his wand which was tucked away in a kitchen drawer, but his name was clearly noted on Watcher records, should the Dark Lord have contacts there... and he had contacts everywhere...

"Does this have anything to do with that uber-cool tattoo?" came Dawn's voice from the stairwell.

Rupert shoved his glasses back onto his face and crossed the living room. As expected, she was listening in at the top landing, knees hugged to chest, wearing her pyjamas — a pair of Buffy's, covered in little pictures of sushi. "It's early for bed. Weren't you meant to be doing homework?"

"Giles, it's June. I don't have school, remember? Plus, you're all talking about Scooby stuff, and I think I should get a say in it." She grinned and made a show of climbing to her feet.

"Then read a book, if you haven't homework," he replied.

"It is the tattoo, isn't it," Dawn countered, "and you weren't gonna tell Willow. I bet you were being all secret-like. Were you talking about me? Mom and Buffy always made me go away when they were talking about me."

"It's not about you. It's my fault, this time. Please, Dawn, go find a book. There are many on my shelves. Just stay away from the Dark Magic volumes?" Rupert sighed and crossed back to the witches, rolling up his left sleeve as he went. "As I'm sure you heard from Dawn, all of this fuss centers around this tattoo."

Tara frowned and pursed her lips. "It's ugly. What ever possessed you to put that on your arm?"

"It was a cult, of sorts. Being given this tattoo was a part of the initiation process. Hazing, so to speak," he tried to explain. Thankfully, it seemed neither witch had come across the Dark Mark in their research. He silently thanked the American system of magical education - though by overlooking two such bright witches the entire academy of intellectual wizards were missing key members, it meant that Giles had much less to explain. "We were involved in some fairly dark magics... more than summoning demons, though I'd rather not discuss the extent to which the group went. As with most cults, leaving wasn't an option. I fled to the Mug- to the Watcher's Council in 1979 and, though the leader of the group followed, Mr. Travers helped to hide me. On October 31, almost sixteen years ago, the leader of the cult was killed rather mysteriously... or, I believed him dead, until Dawn noticed the mark this morning." That done, he slipped his glasses off and wiped them on the edge of his shirt, trying desperately not to see the worried looks passing between Willow and Tara. Perhaps the night of his adoption of Dawn wasn't the best time to relate the full extent of his youthful blunders... but it was now or never, and Lord only knew what Voldemort might have planned.

"So — wait, you joined a cult where they put oogy tattoos on you and ran away to be a Watcher?" Willow shook her head blankly. "This is weird even for me, and hello, grew up on the Hellmouth?"

He tossed his glasses on the table, deciding that being blind was preferable to the levels of skepticism in the room. "Yes. Cult, tattoo, Watcher, in that order. I should've told everything earlier on, but it didn't seem important, as the man in question was supposed to be dead." A blur was moving at the corner of his vision, and he glared in the direction of the stairs. "Dawn, I may have my glasses off, but that doesn't mean I can't see you moving. Go read."

"But Spike's coming... I saw him through the window, and I wanted to say hi..." she whined, crossing the room to throw herself in a chair next to Willow. In an instant, the two witches had shifted their focus to the girl's well being. Well, they knew the truth, now. Whether they understood the significance of a Dark Lord returning from beyond the grave or not was debatable, but he wasn't about to draw more attention to it than absolutely necessary.

As Dawn promised, the door was flung open mere moments later, and Spike stormed in. "Anya and I dusted five in the graveyard," he announced. "And Xander was just as useless as always. Tell me, Watcher-boy, did you ever think of training her bloody friends to help out? He's helpless without a — bugger it all, Rupert, what the hell did you do!?"

The vampire's gaze was clearly directed at the mark on his left forearm. Cursing to himself, Giles rolled down his sleeve, snatched up his glasses, and shoved them back on his face — he should've expected Spike to know of the Dark Lord... "It was 1977. As you can tell, I've changed a great deal since then."

"Yeah, well your bloody Lord Voldemort and Death Eater friends chased me clear out of the bleedin' country!" he spat, crossing the room to Dawn's confusion. "Do you have any idea what kind of shit you were messing with? You think life and death are some sort of game?"

"Get out," he snapped reflexively, shifting to the calculating Slytherin persona of Ripper he'd so carefully cultivated in his tenure at Hogwarts. "This isn't your business, Spike. Buffy's dead. You couldn't save her, so why don't you just leave the lot of us free of your meddling?" He saw Dawn flinch and Tara draw the girl to her side. It couldn't be helped.

Spike sneered, and took a step backward, in the direction of the door. "How many did YOU kill? At least I had an excuse... I need blood to live. What's yours? Or maybe you're just no more than a murderer walking free."

"OUT!" Rupert snarled, fighting back a crackle of power, repressed for fifteen years. He couldn't use it — using his magic would alert the Ministry and Voldemort to his presence in Sunnydale, and Dawn needed him. He hadn't been able to suppress it enough, it seemed — Tara's eyes had narrowed as she looked on him, measuring him.

The vampire crouched by Dawn's chair and patted her shoulder in an oddly tender manner. "Take care, little bit. And be wary of old Rupert. There are facts he's not telling."

Holding back a full-blown growl, Giles ripped open his desk drawer and pulled out a stake. "Get out of my house or, so help me, I'll be hoovering you out of my carpet."

Spike rose and patted Dawn's shoulder, leaving without a word. There was a long, silent pause before Dawn glared at her guardian. "You didn't have to do that, you know. He's not going to hurt me. He tried to save my life."

"And failed," Rupert snapped. The hurt expression that crossed her face pulled at his emotions, but he put the stake back into his drawer and turned to Willow. "You did an uninviting spell last year. I need you to find it and do it again. I'll not have him invading my home and threatening me. My family."

He'd thought that including Dawn in his family would soften the blow, but instead she jumped to her feet and scrambled up the stairs, sobbing. Willow shot a glare in Rupert's direction and followed her. "We won't do the spell," Tara said, watching Willow go. "Neither of us a-are particularly fond of Spike, but he loved her. Loved B-buffy." She wouldn't meet Rupert's gaze. "Cutting him out would be cruel, now that she's — she's g-gone." Tara choked back a sob, shaking her head to stop herself. "He loves Dawn, too. She might be your daughter, in the scheme of things, but he's like her big brother. You can't do that to her."

"Then I'll do the spell myself," he responded without considering the consequences, turning and crossing to his bookshelves. Third shelf, second section, behind the books on ancient Aramaic spell derivatives — a whole set of Hogwarts textbooks, from first to seventh year, their covers faded with time sat waiting for use. However, he'd left that world behind. Who knew if he could even do the magic alone, anymore?

"Giles... I think I've seen that mark on your arm before."

He froze before stuffing the old Aramaic texts in front of his schoolbooks, hiding the evidence. "O-oh?" Rupert hazarded a glance over his shoulder. For once, Tara looked entirely confident.

She nodded slowly. "I didn't want to bring it up in front of Willow, but... if what I read about that group — that cult — was true, you were involved with some pretty serious incidents. Like... August 1978, in the magical section of one of the London train stations, there was an enormous attack. It's in all the magical history texts. Hundreds died, and when the magical police reached the scene, that mark was above it all." Tara hesitated, and the stutter crept back into her voice. "W-were you th-there? Did you k-kill?"

The night Buffy died, he'd been the one to destroy Glory's other half — an innocent young man; Rupert held his nose and mouth shut until he suffocated. But compared to that August night, Ben's elimination was nothing. It had been all late commuter traffic, returning on a Sunday night from Scotland and the Lake District. The Dark Lord had learned, somehow, that one Jeanne Weasley Pullman would be on the train, sister to Arthur Weasley of the Muggle-lovers office and new wife to the Minister's right hand advisor. She'd been killed first, a bloody job left to McNair's experienced hands. From what the Daily Prophet reported, the only recognizable bit of her left had been her face. But that hadn't been Rupert's task — he, under the command of Malfoy, had been sent to dispatch everyone else riding that night. He could still vividly picture each face that he cursed to their deaths, though he'd long since stopped reliving the moments in his nightmares. There had been a little girl, blonde like his Buffy, and her mother, a woman who now wore Joyce's face. A mousy, balding man, dressed in pinstriped robes. A group of university students, heading back from summer holidays. A woman with sleek black hair, exotically beautiful.

"Giles? Mr. Giles, will you answer me?" Tara demanded.

Rupert closed his eyes, trying to banish the stream of faces. "I was there," he whispered. He'd thought he was over the guilt, but it was back with a vengeance. "It was two more years before I left... but I was there. Me, and Ethan, and Diedre and Thomas. What I did was... unforgivable..."

"Spike was right," she said simply, and fell silent as Willow came back downstairs — it had to be Willow alone; he could identify Dawn's footsteps by the loud clunking of her ridiculously useless, yet fashionable, shoes.

"By adopting Dawn, you got Spike, too," Willow announced. Rupert turned to watch her cross the room and pull Tara to her feet. "Until you come to terms with that, we will not be visiting, though Dawn can visit us. I will not be doing an uninviting spell. You can do it yourself, if you're even able. And that's that. Come on, Tara, let's leave him to brood." He thought about asking them to stay, explaining to Willow everything Tara knew... but the lingering doubts about Dawn's safety ensured Rupert's silence. And then, before he could think of something else to say, they were gone.

Dawn was upstairs, alone and angry. He knew he should go and talk to her. Instead, he moved aside the Aramaic texts again and pulled out his sixth-year History of Magic textbook, paging through to find the writing in the margins. _Stop reading this crap, Ripper — come to the Quidditch pitch after 8, and I'll introduce you to someone with more power than Grindelwald._ It was Lucius Malfoy's handwriting, from the fateful day that spelled the end for Ripper — a long, bloody end. Taking the book over to the couch, he flipped through to find the myriad of other notes dotting the yellowed pages. They were all likely dead now, or in Azkaban, but he could never escape their shadows. His classmates — the Slytherins. He wept, and never noticed the pair of blue eyes watching his actions from the stairwell.


	2. Mundane Interrupted

Title: Counted as Clay Jars

Author: Indarae

Rating: PG-13

Summary: With Dawn's father absent after Buffy's death, care for the younger Summers falls to one Rupert Giles. However, even as life returns to normal, pieces of his past come back to threaten the future.

A/N: Well, I'm posting now at ff.net, since the fic's original home, Twisting the Hellmouth, is in a state of flux.

Part Two — Mundane Interrupted

July 31

Harry Potter vaguely remembered waking in the midst of the previous night's sleep, but all wrapped up and warm in one of Mrs. Weasley's knitted blankets while the sun shone across his face up in his best friend Ron's room, real life seemed far removed. He didn't have to think about his 'rescue' from the Dursleys by Remus Lupin, or the pain he'd lived with the past month and a half, since Sirius died. He didn't have to think at all.

Stretching, Harry climbed out of his warm cocoon to wake up Ron and go down for some of Mrs. Weasley's amazing food — however, Ron wasn't there. His blankets were still rumpled, but the sun was shining higher than it should be, by Harry's estimation. He glanced to his wristwatch and let out a squeal of surprise (Oh, he hoped Ron hadn't heard that!) before scrambling around to pull on a pair of pants and a relatively clean shirt. They hung off him, but that was nothing new, as almost everything he owned had once belonged to his cousin, Dudley.

He hadn't the time to spend thinking about his blasted relatives, though. It was almost noon! He'd been sixteen for twelve whole hours without realizing it! And today was the day they were to spend in Diagon Alley, just hanging out instead of focusing on school supplies. They were going to see Tonks and Lupin, maybe even Hermione and Luna, if they could make it. Why hadn't someone awakened him? Forgoing shoes and socks for the moment, Harry dashed down the flights of stairs until he arrived in the Weasley kitchen to find three red heads awaiting him. Three rather blurry red heads. "Blast, I've gone and left my glasses — why didn't someone wake me up?"

"Well, we put off leaving for you, dear. You were so upset last night... _Accio_ glasses," a figure, which must've been Mrs. Weasley, said, and Harry caught a blur of motion out of the corner of his eye before the vaguely person-shaped mass moved over and presented his frames to him.

Smiling thankfully, he slid them on. Indeed, Mrs. Weasley stood before him, with Ron and Ginny at the table. The twins, Bill, and Charlie — who were home for good, now — were nowhere to be found. "Thanks, Mrs. Weasley. Er... last night? I don't remember -"

"You woke up screaming like a bloody banshee," Ron offered.

Ginny leveled a glare at him. "Don't swear."

Ron glared right back. "Bloody, sodding, shagging — OW!" He rubbed at the back of his head where his sister had smacked him.

"Don't mind them, dear. Come sit down and I'll make you up some eggs... you woke at about three in the morning, screaming something about You-Know-Who and Severus Snape and Rupert Giles. I couldn't make heads nor tails of it," Mrs. Weasley said as Harry slid into a seat next to Ron.

Harry frowned and tried to remember whatever had happened the last night. Rupert Giles? The name wasn't familiar, at all. Except... and the vision came tumbling back in a flash of pain.

Snape had been stripped of his robes and roughly handled by someone — a bruise and a black eye were visible on his face as a figure forced him prostrate before Voldemort's throne — Harry's throne, as he was inside of the Dark Lord's mind again. He could see only bits of the room — the throne, a polished marble floor, the flickering of firelight, and a circle of identically black-robed figures in white masks surrounding the throne and Snape's prone form. Glancing to the side, he caught sight of himself in the mirror: Voldemort looked healthier than when Harry had set eyes on him in the Ministry for Magic — though his eyes still glowed an unnatural red, he resembled his human form of Tom Riddle more than anything serpentine.

"Poor Severus," Harry hissed, rising slowly from his plush chair before taking a step toward the crumpled figure of the Potions Master. "Your schemes betray you, in the end."

"My Lord, I haven't a clue to what you're referring," Snape said. Though crouching on the floor, he still maintained some of the poise of his classroom persona. Harry, however, could hear the shake in his voice.

He laughed. "Don't bother to protest your innocence, Severus. I've known of your betrayal since Barty Crouch took his post at your school. His loss is lamented — he had the old fool's ear, and Dumbledore told him to respect your abilities as a spy. I'm not as blind as you seem to think."

Snape didn't respond, but the sudden droop of his shoulders told Harry everything — the Slytherin Head of House had given up. Until he'd become aware of Snape's duties in the resistance against Voldemort, Harry would've cheered such a comeuppance. However, despite his dislike of the man, losing even one player trusted by Dumbledore was crippling, especially when that man was the only spy in Voldemort's army. How much information had Snape been allowed access to? How much danger was Harry in, after the interrogations of the man ended?

"There was a list of names in your pocket, Severus. These twelve names are so familiar to me. What would you be doing with a list of those who deserted me?" Harry produced the list in question and stepped forward, pacing around his prisoner in a tight circle. If it was meant to intimidate, it was useless — Snape wasn't looking up. "All but four have little check marks by them, why is that? Resisting is a waste of time — we'll use your own veritaserum on you regardless."

Harry tried to skip past the following scene of senseless bloodshed. Snape refused to talk and a Death Eater — he was fairly sure it was Lucius Malfoy from the strands of platinum blonde hair visible around the mask, despite the fact that Malfoy was supposed to be in prison — stepped forward and beat Snape with his bare fists until the man gave up his answers. Flecks of blood covered the white marble floor at the Dark Lord's feet by the time Malfoy was done.

"Dumbledore wanted to know which of the deserters were dead," Snape wheezed. It sounded as though something in his chest had been cracked. Would he live out the night? "The checks are those I've verified as having passed on."

One of the unidentified Death Eaters stepped forward and bowed low. "My Lord, shall we bring the potion for you?"

"No, no... We'll save that delight for another evening. He has no reason to lie to me anymore... since, the longer he tells truth, the longer he survives. And the more he lies, the longer it takes to die. Lucius, take him to your wife, we don't want him bleeding to death on us. Avery, I want him held somewhere permanently. The rest of you... we have four to track down. Ethan Rayne, Jeanne Kilde, Randall Halliwell and Rupert Giles. I want them all." Harry held up a hand to stop Malfoy from dragging Snape from the hall. "Oh, how forgetful of me. I'd meant to do this earlier... Crucio."

Crucio echoed through every thought, until Ron grabbed hold of Harry's shoulders and shook him back to reality. "Harry, mate, snap out of it? What's wrong?"

"I have to get to Dumbledore," he whispered. Ginny and Mrs. Weasley were paying close attention, but he supposed it was okay if they knew the whole story. "Voldemort has Professor Snape."

"Giles?" Anya shook his arm, snapping him back to task. It was midday at the Magic Box, and though customers weren't flocking in, he thought his little store had carved out a comfortable niche in Sunnydale society. He'd taken to haunting the back room during mealtimes, staring at the rack of weapons that reminded him of her. He should clean them out, before they drove him crazy.

"Yes, Anya? Is there something wrong?" It was after hours, and they were to spend the rest of the evening doing inventory. Dawn was at a friend's home, due to return to the flat before they went out for dinner with Anya and Xander, at some new sushi restaurant that Tara loved. Their plans, these days, were so mundane; so familial — every moment felt as though something would rip his neat and tidy life to pieces.

Anya tugged on his sleeve. "It's a phone call for you. From some man who sounds like he has an entire tree rammed up his ass," she explained straightforwardly. "He was definitely British. Not that you sound like you have a tree rammed up your ass, of course. A stick, maybe, but not a tree. Or if it's a tree, maybe it's just a sapling -"

"THANK you, Anya," he broke in, hurrying for the front room. "Did you get a name?"

"Nope. He's just British. Very British!" she called after him.

She added something else, but he didn't catch it, as he scooped up the phone. "Magic Box, this is Mr. Giles."

Rupert should've known what was coming — and at some level he did, but nothing could prepare him for the crushing fear he felt at what came next. "Ah, Rupert. This is Quentin Travers. We've been awaiting your return."

His breath caught in his throat. Breathe. Two breaths. Long, slow — regain control — "She's gone, Mr. Travers. You don't have any reason to contact me. Please let me be."

"You're still a Watcher, Rupert," came the voice over the line. Anya was right — he sounded as if he had an oak rammed up his —

"Then I resign. I respectfully request that you leave me to live my life. Please don't make me leave her all alone." He tried not to beg, but the waver in his voice spoke volumes he couldn't suppress.

There was a tinny snort of laughter. "I've fielded several calls about you of late. Two old friends, both went to school with you. I could tell them just where you are... You know who I'm talking about, right? The first chap was tall, blonde, dressed like he was right out of Dickens." Lucius, ever the aristocrat. "The other seemed a bit younger. Brown hair, cheeky grin." Ethan, the trickster.

Had the Dark Lord tracked Ethan down, then? If so, why wasn't he already dead? "What do you want me to do?" he whispered. Rupert caught sight of Anya at the edge of his line of sight, frowning in some combination of confusion and compassion.

"That's the spirit now, Rupert! I won't call you back to England, not yet... we want you to stay there in Sunnydale. We'll be Calling a new Slayer, soon."

It took only a minute for Travers' words to click. "You're going to kill Faith," he responded. She would be nearly helpless in prison. He wasn't fond of her, of course, but he didn't want her to die... but without Buffy, there was no Slayer. The Buffybot (which he refused to set eyes on) was slowly decaying under the heavy use. Without Buffy... he and the others were doing their best patrolling. He was even making himself put up with Spike's presence, since Dawn seemed to adore him so.

"That's none of your concern," Travers said, breaking into his thoughts. "When the new Slayer is Called, we want you in Sunnydale to greet her. She can stay with you until her Watcher arrives. You'll like him, Rupert. He's very much like you were as a twenty-something. Oh, but minus that tattoo. I'll be hearing from you."

The line went dead. He tried desperately to control his breathing, but it was no use. Somehow, somehow, Travers knew everything. It seemed insane, but there it was — truth. If he didn't do everything the Council of Watchers said... but then Faith would die... there was no one left to trust...

Or was there?

"Anya, could you give Willow a ring, and ask for Wesley Wyndham-Pryce's phone number in Los Angeles, if she still has it? Or Angel's number, if she can't find Wesley's?" He set down the phone and made a beeline for the restricted texts. "I have some reading to do." There had to be a spell there, a spell he could do wandless that could protect Dawn from whatever came after her. It was life and death.

Anya was there first, cutting him off. "Who's killing Faith? And who's Faith, for that matter? I don't know these people."

There wasn't much time... but explaining to Anya in order to obtain her help was probably a better use of it than running off half-cocked. He was acting like a damn fool Gryffindor. "Faith is the other Slayer. Did Xander mention her? The one in prison."

"Oh!" Anya's face brightened. "Yes! The one he had sex with. He said Faith was the Slayer with a capital 'S' and Buffy was the slayer with the lowercase 's' since Buffy's death hasn't Called another Slayer. Is that right?"

Rupert blinked, mind trying to wrap around the concept of Xander producing a viable explanation for Faith's existence. Maybe the boy saw more than he'd thought... "Er- not quite the explanation I'd have given, but I suppose it's enough. You know who Angel is, of course. And Wesley was Faith's Watcher, and Buffy's for a time — entirely ineffectual, but he should be informed. Someone has to do something. I can't just let the girl die."

"Why don't you call those people? I don't know them. I have the money to count. Or I could look for spells or something — do we have to break her out of the slammer?" Anya was halfway up the stairs before Rupert called out to her.

"I need a protection spell. For Dawn. I'm not sure what the Council will do when I refuse to return." A valid fear, though the fear of the Ministry and the Dark Lord trying to track him down were far greater. He didn't hear Anya respond, already paging through his old Watcher diary. It was useless now, and he felt as though he should ship them off to the Council... but each page was a memory of her presence in his life, however regrettably short it was.

Wesley's number should've been there, somewhere, but Rupert found himself distracted by accounts of her deeds. He had known her for only five short years... but she redeemed him. Aiding her, falling in love (however doomed) with her mother, adopting her sister... he felt as if he'd made a difference, small though it was; a contribution to the greater good he'd once tried to destroy. She was the daughter of his heart.

His number was up in the corner, scribbled across the account of the Council's visit and their revelation of Glory's godhood. A picture of Ben's face as he died at Rupert's hands flashed across his vision before he grabbed up the phone and dialed Los Angeles. The ex-Watcher's familiar, pinched tones answered in a blessedly familiar British accent. "Hello?"

"Wesley, this is Rupert Giles." He waited for the inevitable stunned silence, and wasn't disappointed.

"Er- yes, hello, Mr. Giles. Is there something I can do for you?"

Did they know about her death? He thought Willow had rung them up — but he couldn't be sure. "Since... since Buffy is... gone, the Council wants to Call a new Slayer. They're planning to murder Faith."

The uncomfortable silence was there again. "Yes — I'm... er, I'm very sorry about Buffy, Rupert, but there's little I can do for Faith. I'm not a Watcher anymore, and she's in prison -"

"She's just a girl. She can't die, not at their hands," he snapped, unable to control the pain and anger rising in his voice. "Faith did terrible things, yes — I'm not sure if she can be redeemed or not, but she deserves the chance to live." Rupert thought back to those first few months in hiding; of confessing his sins to his father and begging forgiveness. He'd wanted a chance to live, and the Council had given it.

"Am I understanding you correctly? You wish for me to break Faith out of prison and hide her? Somehow help her to find redemption while keeping her secret from the Council?" Wesley's skepticism was audible.

Rupert winced. Putting it all that way made it sound... impossible. "Yes," he hazarded, cradling the receiver on his shoulder in favor of cleaning his glasses.

"This is madness. There are things in LA I'm dealing with — I have no time to baby-sit a psychopathic killer! Why don't you break her out and redeem her?"

He stole a glance up to the book annex, where Anya was hunched over a large stack of volumes. Rupert lowered his voice anyway. "I'm in trouble, Wesley. I need your help. Give me just a few hours — is there somewhere I can drive up and meet you? Some halfway point? Or I could drive all the way in..."

Another pause. "Alright. I won't promise that I can help you, but if it's important... find a pen, I'll give you directions to a coffeehouse out in the suburbs. I'll be there tomorrow night at seven. If you're later than seven-thirty, I'll be gone."

He grabbed up the nearest scrap of paper. "I'll be there. Give me the directions."

August 1

It was very early in the morning that a knocking on the door of her apartments in the staff wing awakened Minerva. She slipped on her tartan dressing gown before rubbing the sleep from her eyes and opening the door a crack to peer out. "Headmaster?"

He was clad in a long white sleeping shirt and stocking cap, not even sporting slippers on his feet, and the expression on his face was one of a man decades his senior — grieving and resigned. "Let me come in, Minerva."

She stepped aside without question, helping Dumbledore to the closest chair — her grandmother's, in an understated McKenzie tartan — before taking the seat across from him. Her wand was tucked away in the dressing gown's front pocket, and she waved it at the empty fireplace. "_Incendio_. There, toasty warm... what's happened?"

Minerva wasn't sure what she'd expected — a story of dead Muggleborns or more of Fudge's infuriating stubbornness, perhaps — but the Headmaster's response elicited a gasp of worry. "Severus was Summoned just after supper, the night before last. He hasn't returned. Sometimes... sometimes in the last war, it would take him a day to get back. I've given him a day... but he's still not here..."

"Maybe- maybe he's discovered something particularly pertinent?" She tried to control the racing of her heart, but the shock of knowledge kept her babbling.

"I fear for him," the Headmaster whispered, crumpling in on himself. Ancient — he looked simply ancient. "I've lost him. I should never have sent him back..."

"You had no way of knowing this would happen..." It was a transparent lie. She was sure Severus had insisted on stubbornly fighting his way back, even after the signs suggested he'd be unwelcome... but they all should've seen it.

"And that's not all," Albus murmured. "Moody's just brought word — all of the Death Eaters incarcerated after Fudge relented have disappeared from Azkaban. Imagine Lucius Malfoy, half crazed after a month at the hands of those terrible Dementors... Minerva, all we've been gaining seems to be crumbling."

She shook her head. "Not crumbling. We're still ahead — he doesn't have the prophecy, and Severus promised to finish teaching Harry Occulmancy." She cut herself off. "He'll be back," she went on. "He'll be back, just to torture the poor boy."

Albus' face was buried in his hands. "I've sent him to his death," he insisted. "I failed him, as I failed the others... James, Lily, Sirius, and Cedric... Frank and Alice..."

Sobs entirely uncharacteristic of the usually unflappable Headmaster filled the room, and all Minerva could do was watch.

He'd spent the afternoon shopping with Dawn — or, as it inevitably became, following Dawn and Willow around as they tried on every outfit in the expensive stores along the main street. Willow had found some high-paying computer programming job over the summer and wasn't afraid to flaunt it. Though she and Tara were still angry over Rupert's decision to sell the Summers home, they were doing well enough living in Willow's parents' home. Her parents were seldom in residence anyway — last he'd heard, they were touring the South Seas until the holiday.

Rupert was unable to explain the reason for his trip up to Los Angeles other than "Watcher business," to which Dawn had thrown a temper tantrum worse than he'd ever had the misfortune to witness. She'd seemed three years of age, rather than fifteen. It had ended with Dawn refusing to speak to him and Spike showing up to guard the 'little bit' to Rupert's distaste — but there was nothing to be done. Without Wesley's help, someone could find him at any time.

There it was — the Java Jive (what a ridiculously cliché name) right off the motorway, as Wesley explained. He was only a moment behind schedule, but Wesley's car pulled in just behind him. The younger man looked a little worse for wear as he climbed out of his car and waited for Rupert to do the same — but he cut to the heart of the matter. "Explain why I have to rescue a killer."

He hazarded a glance around — not enough people were in the coffeehouse to provide safety and he'd owned his car for too long... it could be bugged... "Is there any possibility that your car might be wired?"

Wesley's eyes narrowed, but he jerked open the door and slid back inside, shaking his head. Rupert yanked open the passenger door and followed, slamming it behind him. "Wizard, Squib, or Muggle?" he demanded first of all. The Council was made up of a combination — and Wesley's comprehension could be measured by his answer.

"My father was a Squib and a Council member, my mother a Muggle with a Squib grandfather. How is this important?" He was losing his temper, Rupert noted.

"I was simply trying to gauge how much you know about Lord Voldemort — obviously you're not a follower, which makes this much easier for me..."

Wesley's eyes had popped open with Rupert's mention of the Dark Lord. "Good Lord, Rupert, don't say his name!"

Ah. One of those. He couldn't help his sneer. "Honestly, it's just a name..." There was a lecture threatening to break free, but he sighed and shook his head, forging onward instead. "I don't know how much contact you've had with the wizards since moving to America and leaving the Council, but he was resurrected, somehow."

"Impossible," Wesley blurted. "Magic can't bring people back to life! Besides, how would you know?"

Reigning in a sigh, Rupert settled in for the long haul. "White magic cannot bring someone back to life, yes. But Dark Magic can — and Lord Voldemort was, as you very well know, the Darkest of wizards. With help... and he had many followers in many walks of life, Wesley, don't underestimate him... with help, he could use any number of spells to aid in resurrection or constructing a new body, or whatever was necessary after he faced Harry Potter. I wouldn't doubt his reappearance."

The younger man's eyes had narrowed again. "Answer the second question. And then tell me what this has to do with me, and with Faith."

There was no tactful way to do this... "I'm going to show you something, and then I'm going to explain. Please give me the benefit of the doubt for just a few moments." Hopefully his fellow Briton wouldn't go running for the authorities as soon as he bared his arm... but, regardless of consequence, it was the best way to explain his situation. Rupert unbuttoned his sleeve and rolled back the fabric carefully before turning his forearm so the hideous red skull and snake were visible to Wesley.

Predictably, the man jerked away, fumbling for the car door. "Oh my Lord — you're one of them -" 

"No. Listen," he snapped, grabbing Wesley's shoulder. "I was a follower, yes. I fled. My father hid me until the fall of the Dark Lord, whereupon I joined the Watcher's Council. But now that he's back... he's looking for me, Wesley. I don't know what you know of his followers, but he sent Lucius Malfoy after me. I may not have much time before he finds me."

Wesley seemed unable to tear his gaze from the blank eyes of the skull. "Why is this my problem?"

Rupert let out a hiss of despair. "Buffy's mother died about six months ago. Then Buffy died, followed only a few weeks later by Buffy's father. Dawn — Buffy's little sister — had no one left to care for her. I'm all she has left. In addition to caring for a child, I'm all there is to guard the Hellmouth — myself, Willow, Xander, and Xander's fiancée. If Voldemort finds me, he finds the Hellmouth. If Voldemort finds the Hellmouth, he uses the Hellmouth, as without a Slayer, we are too weak to guard it. By hiding me and by breaking Faith out of jail, you are able to both confuse the Council and guard the Hellmouth itself... because if Lord Voldemort uses the Hellmouth, you can only imagine the horrors that might follow."

A loud swallow filled the car, followed by Wesley's eyes flickering from the Dark Mark to Rupert's face. "What all must I do?"

"Rescue Faith and help me perform a spell that will make me invisible to those who hunt me, unless you tell the secret. It doesn't require a born magic user to activate the other end... and no one will know what you've done..." He took a deep breath and fumbled in his coat for his wand and the hastily scribbled directions for the spell. They could perform it and be gone before an unauthorized use of magic was registered at the American Bureau of Illicit Charm Use, if all went well. "It's called the Fidelis Charm..."


	3. Guilty Relief

Title: Counted as Clay Jars

Author: Indarae

Rating: PG-13

Pairings: So far, none. Could be some Dawn/Harry or some Dawn/Draco, but I doubt anything permanent will come of it.

Summary: With Dawn's father absent after Buffy's death, care for the younger Summers falls to one Rupert Giles. However, even as life returns to normal, pieces of his past come back to threaten the future.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I'm glad to se people have been enjoying this. Hopefully it's different than the other hp/btvs crossovers around.

Part Three — Guilty Relief

August 2

Somehow, staying at Hogwarts hadn't been a part of Harry's summer plans, but his vision and the continued rise of Voldemort merited more protection than either the Dursleys or the Weasleys could give. Or so Dumbledore said. Harry wondered, from the defeated look on the Headmaster's face, just how much of the extra security was because of Snape's capture.

Following his arrival at the castle, Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall had questioned him about his dream and all the details thereof. Some of his dreams had been helpful in the past, and they'd hoped another would follow... but Harry woke on his first night back, tucked safely in the Gryffindor dormitory, to find only a memory of a girl and her father. She'd been very pretty, Harry thought, but she spoke very oddly. He wished Ron was there to help translate, but he was staying at home for the rest of the holiday.

Harry pulled on his Gryffindor robes over his pyjamas and headed down to the Great Hall in slippers, greeting various professors — all less than delighted to have such a target in their midst weeks early — before taking a seat at the Head Table next to Dumbledore. "I didn't dream about Professor Snape," he said, before the Headmaster could ask. "I dreamed about a girl and her father. Her father was afraid of Voldemort, but she didn't know who he is. I don't know if this was a real dream or not."

"More of your dreams may be prophetic than you realize," Dumbledore said, smiling kindly. The smile didn't quite reach his eyes, however — something was held back in a way Harry had never seen. He'd seen Dumbledore angry and ecstatic, somber and joyful, but never old. "If you dream of her again, let me know. She may be important."

"How are we going to get him back?" Harry asked quickly because as much as he didn't want Snape for Potions class anymore, he would feel bad if the man were killed because Harry had been unable to defeat the Dark Lord two months earlier.

Dumbledore's eyes narrowed. "We will not be doing anything. You will study Defense Against the Dark Arts with Professor Sinistra until our new teacher arrives. You're a student still, Harry, not a fully trained wizard. We will get him back."

He could feel how false the statement actually was just by looking in the old man's eyes — disturbing, when only a year previous, all of the Headmaster's thoughts seemed impenetrable. "I need to help, somehow. This is worse than meaningless chores at the Dursleys. I don't want to be useless."

"Find that girl, then," Dumbledore said. "If she's real, Voldemort believes she's important."

"Albus," Professor McGonagall broke in, leaning on the table from Dumbledore's other side, "I've some information on what Severus was working on... oh, good morning, Harry."

"Go ahead, Minerva," Dumbledore said, snagging a pastry nonchalantly.

McGonagall spared a suspicious look for Harry before continuing. "Severus was trying to find ex-Death Eaters... he had a list of twelve possible deserters. I took three names to track down: one is dead, but I've found evidence suggesting two are still alive. Rupert Giles and Ethan Rayne, both Slytherins." She spread out several pieces of parchment beside Dumbledore's plate, and Harry leaned over to get a good look at the pictures. "We may be too late for Rayne — he was supposed to be in Florence, Italy for a conference this weekend but did not show up. Giles, however -"

"That's the father from my dream," Harry put in abruptly, staring at a wizarding photo of a young man grinning in Hogwarts uniform. "He's much older now, but that's him."

McGonagall seemed upset at his interruption, but Dumbledore was delighted. "That's it," he said, poking at Giles' picture. "He's hiding to protect his daughter... we have to find him. If we promise to protect her, he may risk himself just enough to lead us to Voldemort — and Severus. What do you know, Minerva?"

"Not much," she muttered. "He went into the family business... but no one seems to know what that was. He left the country in '89, and the last record I have is from New York City. We've a dead end."

A dead end... but maybe his dreams would prove the key. Harry examined the photos carefully — hopefully, they'd find the girl before Voldemort did, because Snape's life hung in the balance.

--------

Rupert smiled at the latest customer and hoped it didn't seem too forced. "Thank you very much for shopping at the Magic Box, and I hope your purchase helps with that spell." He waited until the woman was gone before hurrying to the back room to find Anya. "What are you doing?" he demanded, noting the ex-demon sitting in front of an old laptop computer, which was hooked up to the wall. Good Lord, did he rue the day he'd introduced Anya to dialup internet access.

"Oh — nothing much," she said quickly, moving to slam the screen shut.

The Watcher, however, was faster. "Ebay?" he demanded, peering at the list of items visible as he held the screen open. "What in God's name do you need with a... Backstreet Boys lunchbox? Anya, do you know what they are?"

She beamed brightly, setting the computer aside. "Oh, yes! They're an offshoot of the Connemara demon — one brain in five bodies, but with such nice voices! Xander really wanted a lunchbox, and I know he has all their CDs -"

"No, no — I don't want to know," Rupert cut her off, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. She'd been awfully swift in shutting the computer. Usually she was just brimming with the news of her newest website find... Lord only knew what she'd come up with now that she'd discovered the joy of the online auction, but she was acting strangely like she was hiding something. Resolving to study the history function on the internet browser later — it was one bit of information he'd seen fit to keep from her — he merely shook his head. "I need you out front? We're supposed to be closing up right now, and I've got that parent meeting of Dawn's to go on the 6th, so I wanted to show you what needs to be done at opening?"

"I'll just go and do that cleaning up thing now!" Anya beamed, very pointedly unplugging the computer and packing it away in its carrying case. Yes... definitely up to something... "Why don't you let me finish this tonight? Xander said I should be more accommodating because you adopted Dawn. What's it like having a kid? I thought maybe someday Xander and I should have a kid, but when I said that, he turned sort of this greenish shade that didn't look very healthy -"

Rupert held back a laugh. "It's a bit different, having a grown-up child like Dawn to care for. You do realize you'd start out with a baby."

"Yes, well..." Anya sniffed and slung the computer case over her shoulder. "They're only smelly for so long, and then they learn to talk and all. Dawn can be rather a nice little girl sometimes, when she's not complaining about school or people not paying attention to her or how hot it is outside or something Buffy did." She stopped suddenly. He was very much aware of the look of pain flashing across his face, but he couldn't control it. "Is it — is it bad for me to say things about Buffy? She's been dead for months now. After Joyce died, people kept talking about her, but everyone freezes up like this when I talk about Buffy. Is it wrong for me to talk about her?"

"No, it's not," he replied. He reached up to pull off his glasses, but stopped. It was time to close up the shop, he could explain to Anya as they went. "We should be in the front of the store." He tried to pretend he wasn't attempting to change the subject.

Anya wasn't giving up on it, anyway. She followed Rupert to the front of the store and, after checking to make sure no one was left in the shop and locking the front door, slipped behind the counter to talk to him again. "Why can I talk about Joyce, but not Buffy?"

"Someday, I promise it will be alright to talk about them both... but I think we started to talk about Joyce again for Buffy. She needed to be reassured that it wasn't her fault. Joyce was very sick..." Rupert sighed, setting aside the special order forms he was counting. "We weren't ready for Joyce to die, even though it should've been obvious that the possibility was there. We were shocked. I think talking about her made us come to terms with losing her. It didn't make it easier... we just had to confront ourselves with the fact that she was gone." Or at least Rupert had. He liked to pretend that he hadn't been growing closer to Joyce over the danger Buffy and Dawn had been in, but to deny it would've been a lie. They'd gone on only a single date, the night before her death — Joyce had told Buffy and she was dating a man named Brian. She'd thought Buffy would be horrified by the mere thought of her mother and her Watcher dating.

He'd hoped for many more, but Fate had taken that path from him.

"We knew Buffy was going to die one of these days, though," Anya prompted.

Rupert winced. "Yes. We did. For me, it's much more painful than a sudden death like Joyce's. We knew all along that she'd be lost young. It's almost like losing someone to a long illness... that's how my father passed away. It was inevitable, but his life stretched on in pain. We tried to ease his passing, and when he finally went... it was almost a relief. That it was over, that he wasn't hurting anymore. That hint of relief — that she's gone on to her mother and her father, and no longer has these terrible responsibilities and fights — is... I feel guilt over it. The relief shouldn't be there, but at the same time..." He sighed and took up a stack of packing slips. "Have I helped at all, or only made it worse?"

Oddly enough, Anya had set aside a stack of money. Very few things could tear her away from her greed. "I was wondering what that emotion was. It's been a long time since I've felt guilty about anything. That's what is it, then? I'm sad she's dead, but I'm glad she's not out getting hurt all the time like when Adam kicked her around, but I feel bad that I'm glad because of all that. That's guilt?"

"That's guilt," Rupert whispered. Guilt over the relief that Buffy's pain was over... guilt over the deaths he'd caused... guilt over the joy he felt when he'd heard the Potters died to destroy the Dark Lord... it was all stacking up. Would Anya ever feel guilt over the deaths she'd orchestrated? Or Spike, guilt over the lives he'd ended? "Guilt is an essential part of being human," he admitted, unconsciously rubbing at the mark burned into his arm. "Perhaps... perhaps you'll become a better human than I am."

Anya pursed her lips and nodded. "I don't like the guilt. I'll think about it later," she pronounced, and went back to counting up the day's profits.

If only it could be that easy for Rupert.

--------

Dawn, back at the townhouse, was busy enjoying her evening alone. Willow and Tara had gone out for a romantic dinner, Giles and Anya were at work, Spike was patrolling with the Buffybot, and Xander was putting in overtime in order to pay for something he'd bought for Anya, though he wouldn't admit to Dawn what it was. She thought it was an engagement ring, and though she hadn't seen Anya wearing it yet, she certainly hoped her sister's friend said yes. A wedding would be a very happy thing, at this point — what had that old movie been? Four weddings and a funeral? Well they'd had three funerals; it was about time for a wedding to happen.

She'd found her guardian's collection of records hidden in a filing cabinet and had been shocked to learn he had taste. She'd grown tired of the 70's rock after a while, though, and settled on plugging her CD player into one of the kitchen sockets and singing at the top of her lungs to the Indigo Girls while digging through the kitchen cabinets to find her marshmallows. Giles wouldn't eat them, the weirdo — he thought they were "unnatural and against the world order" but Dawn supposed that was just because the Americans had thought them up and the British were all jealous. Dawn liked to blow them up in the microwave until they were all huge and gooey and then eat them while watching sappy movies.

Giles had a gas stove with open coily things on the top, though, which had an open flame when you turned them on. She could skewer the marshmallows, if she ever found them, onto a knife and then make s'mores... "Stupid Giles, hiding the marshmallows," she muttered under her breath. Mom and Buffy knew better. They always had the marshmallows right at the front of the cabinet so she could find them any time she needed comfort food.

"Finally!" They'd been tucked away in the junk drawer with the extra set of keys, Giles' address book, plastic silverware, various coins — both British and American — and a funny looking chopstick. "Bingo. Just like the roasting stick." Dawn grinned. One time, when she was little, her dad had taken her and Buffy camping. Buffy had hated it, but Dawn loved it, especially when her dad showed her how to make the marshmallows just gooey enough and had set his marshmallow-roasting stick on fire. That had been long before he'd gone off to Spain with his secretary and ended up dead in the Rhine.

But the funny looking chopstick would be perfect for roasting marshmallows, Dawn mused as she pushed unhappy thoughts aside. It was rather thick for a chopstick and had a built-in grip at the end, oddly enough. Dawn grabbed a marshmallow, turned on the gas for the stove and lit up a flame, and dug for the chopstick in the junk drawer.

When she picked it up, it sparked. "Woah," Dawn muttered, setting the marshmallow aside. "Okay, so maybe it's not a chopstick." It was a really pretty stick, in sort of a dark cherry finish, and much smoother than the chopsticks they got from the local Chinese take-out place. It was something less than a foot long and her fingers fit perfectly around the carved grip at the end — and it sent a spark out of the end as she thought about it.

Alarmed, she set the stick down on the counter. It sat there, as sticks are wont to do. Frowning, Dawn shut off the stove and popped the stray marshmallow into her mouth before hesitantly picking up the stick again. No, not a figment of her imagination — the stick very definitely sent a rainbow of pretty shimmers out the end when she touched it. It must be some Magic Box merchandise or something. Maybe she shouldn't burn it...

Instead, she stood and examined the length, the feel, and every imperfection of the wood, oblivious to the garage opening. "Dawn, I've brought Chinese..."

Unconsciously, the stick fit into her hand in a certain grip, as she turned around and smiled at Giles. "Hey, I was just gonna make some s'mores! And I found this cool stick!"

Giles froze, his face morphing into some sort of horror as he shoved the cartons of rice and General Tso's chicken on the counter. "Good Lord... Dawn, where did you find that?"

"It was in the junk drawer... sorry, I didn't mean to mess with your stuff, but when I picked it up, it did this really neat sparking thing. Is it for the Magic Box?" Dawn asked, setting the stick back on the counter.

His expression said otherwise. "It — it sparked? Good Lord... I should've known. With your origin... but that would mean Buffy..." He was babbling, gaze darting for the bookshelves as he ripped off his glasses and cleaned them almost desperately with the corner of his shirt.

Dawn frowned and shuffled toward her guardian. "C'mon Giles, spill — I can't understand if you won't explain it."

Shoving his glasses back on his face, Giles' gaze flickered back to Dawn. "Pick it up again, Dawn? Show me the sparks?"

Shrugging, Dawn complied. They were very pretty, all green and purple and gold. "See? All pretty. I want some blue sparks, though, that'd be cool."

"Sit- sit down please," Giles stuttered, inching toward the bookshelves. "I really have some explaining to do, I'm afraid. I should've told Buffy... too late now... just sit down?"

Dawn pursed her lips. "But the chicken's getting cold -"

"I'll warm it back up," Giles cut in, scurrying for the old and dusties. Dawn would've laughed, if she hadn't been so confused. However, when Giles was in one of his bookish explaining moods, there wasn't much she could do, so she took a seat and waited, snagging a few marshmallows on her way over to the table.

Giles joined her with a stack of books almost immediately, taking a very large one and presenting it to her. "Look at this," he commanded.

It didn't help. "Hogwarts, a History? I don't have to go back to school for a few weeks, can't I wait to do reading-type things until -"

"No, I don't want you to read it. Er — I suppose you wouldn't have heard of it... Alright, I have much to explain, so please bear with me. I don't... talk about my childhood, as I'm sure you've noticed," he began, taking back the book. He also slid the stick from Dawn's grasp, setting it delicately on the table as though it was some wildly important object, rather than a stick.

"Well, Buffy always thought it was because you didn't like your brother. Or didn't like your dad. Something like that?" Of course, Buffy had claimed Dawn was adopted from a circus act. She wasn't that far wrong, Dawn supposed, what with the whole Key-world-ending-fiasco, but Dawn vividly remembered at the age of five, being convinced that her biological parents were a clown and a trapeze artist. Dawn had a sudden mental image of Giles as the trapeze artist father — if Buffy had been there, she'd have dissolved into giggles and explained it... but Giles' face was far too serious for jokes.

He sighed. "While true, it's very little of the story. You see... my family are witches and wizards. Like Willow and Tara, but trained at a school in Scotland and associating with other wizards. There aren't many wizards living out on the West Coast here, because of the corrupting power of the Hellmouth. Being a wizard, in Britain, means something very special — we have a world entirely separate from that of non-wizards and we're not allowed to tell non-wizards about it." He was rubbing at that funky tattoo again. "You Americans are a little more lax about the rules."

"That sounds cool," Dawn said lamely. How else was she supposed to respond? Yeah, a world of wizards sounded very neat, but she didn't see what Giles was being so serious about.

"This is a wand. A magic wand." He touched the stick on the table. "Only a witch or wizard could make it spark like that. The day I bought this wand, the shop was filled with sparkles of green and silver and blue. It was lovely..." Giles smiled and lifted the wand with a practiced touch, as if he'd been born to use it. "If this was any other time, I'd drag you back to Scotland with me right now, so you could learn how to be a witch."

At that, Dawn gaped, dropping the marshmallows in her hands in shock. "Wait. Wait wait. I'm a witch? Like Willow and Tara? That's — woah. And — hey, why can't I go to Scotland? I mean... Buffy's... gone and since she's not here anymore, you're not her Watcher anymore. I want to go to Scotland." THAT would be cool. She'd miss everyone here, but she didn't have many close friends at the junior high, and her mom and sister were dead. She could do magic like Willow. She wanted to see Giles do something with the wand, it was all neat that magic wands really existed —

"I can't go back to England because my life is in danger," Giles said, and Dawn snapped back to reality. "Not all wizards and witches are good, Dawn," he reported. "I made some mistakes and ended up befriending one of the bad ones. If I go back, he'll kill me — he'll probably kill you too, just for being connected to me — and he intends to kill many, many more people. People like you, whose parents aren't wizards, because he thinks you're not as good as people whose parents are wizards. It — it doesn't make much sense, putting it that way, does it."

Of course it didn't make any sense, it was like that eugenics-y thing of Hitler's... but it sounded as though Giles had once meant it. "So the tattoo thing on your arm is a magical tattoo. And you do spells and stuff with a wand... and I can too... but I can't go and learn how because some psycho Big Bad wants to kill you for leaving England? Man, does this suck."

Giles sighed heavily and pursed his lips. "Yes, it rather does, doesn't it. Unfortunately, I was a stupid young man when I made choices out of my league." He flipped through the heavy history book and, turning it so that Dawn could see, pointed at a picture of a pretty castle on a hill with all sorts of turrets sticking out of it. "This was my secondary school."

"Woah," was all Dawn managed to reply. Since the high school was all blown up because of the Mayor's Ascension plans in Buffy's senior year, Dawn's classes had to take place at the Sunnydale Civic Center. Though the new high school was due to be complete in the following school year, she doubted there would be turrets. "You went to school there? I bet you didn't even have to ride in a stupid school bus."

He was beaming down at the picture with an expression usually reserved for stories about Buffy. "It's a boarding school. We lived in different Houses, rather like different dormitories at university here, but we were Sorted according to our traits. Students from every year banded together to compete for the House Cup annually. The competition was quite stiff... my House won four out of the seven years I attended."

"That's way cool," Dawn gushed. She pulled the book onto her lap and flipped to the front section, lined with pictures of two men and two women in long robes and fancy hair-dos. _The Founders_ the caption read. "Can I borrow it and read it?"

"Of course." Giles reached over and smoothed down her hair in a fatherly gesture and for once, Dawn felt as important to him as Buffy. "There's a wizarding section of New York City called Nomin Alley. Once I'm a little more sure of our safety, we can take a trip there and find you a wand, and a new one for me." He picked up the wand reverently, running his fingers over the wood. "I've used it one too many times, I think... he might be able to track me if I use it again."

"You'll teach me to do magic?" Dawn whispered in awe. She'd done just a bit of magic before, right after Mom died, but she wasn't even sure that had worked right. And Willow always said she'd teach her a spell or two, but she'd never really gotten around to it, and then Buffy had died and everyone trod carefully around Dawn.

Giles nodded solemnly. "Real magic, just like all of my teachers taught me... and just like I should've taught Willow. I might be a little rusty, but I want you to know how. This is something I'm sharing only with you."

Maybe she was juvenile for wishing such a thing to happen, but here it was — Giles was offering her even more than her real dad had. She couldn't hide her grin.

"Good," Giles said, patting the open book. "Read this. That'll give you an idea what it was like for me there. If you still want to read after that, all of my old schoolbooks are on the first shelf, behind the Aramaic books and lexicons. Don't let the others see them, Dawn — the fewer people who know what we are, the safer we'll be from the man who's hunting me."

"Right," Dawn replied, grinning more broadly than she'd allowed herself since before Mom's death. "It's our secret."


	4. Gasping for Breath

Title: Counted as Clay Jars

Author: Indarae

Rating: PG-13

Pairings: Dawn/Harry... a little. Hints of Joyce/Giles in the past.

Summary: With Dawn's father absent after Buffy's death, care for the younger Summers falls to one Rupert Giles. However, even as life returns to normal, pieces of his past come back to threaten the future.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I'm glad to see people are enjoying this.

Part Four – Gasping for Breath

August 6

The blood was pounding in Wesley's ears and his breath sounded like thunder as he crouched in a shadowed patch in an LA park. He didn't know where he was, he didn't know who was following him, but he was rather sure it wasn't the police chasing after Faith – the police were easy to evade.

Faith hadn't wanted to escape, oddly enough. Until the revelation about the Council's plans, she'd seemed to be content to reform herself behind bars, and even then it had required the news of Buffy's death to urge her into action. She'd broken the glass separating prisoners from visitors and they'd been off in his car before he could really stop to consider what was happening. She seemed dazed, more than anything.

They didn't speak, but for the explanation, until halfway through the ride. "B's really dead?" she whispered, as darkness fell. "I thought for sure she'd be the one to get through the Slayer thing. I mean, she died once already."

Of course Buffy died in the end – all the Slayers died young. Faith would be no exception, as Wesley had been taught in the Council's training rooms. She'd die at the hands of a vampire, demon, or the Council, if Wesley wasn't careful enough. Maybe it was the Council after them tonight, wearing black to cover their movements.

They'd been stopped just inside the LA city limits by a group of men in black robes and they'd been running since, just hoping to make it to Angel's help before the men caught up. Faith's breathing was slow and steady at his side, where his was labored. "Did we lose them?" she whispered, peering through bushes.

"I don't know – did you get a closer look at them? They may be men, rather than demons of any sort," Wesley whispered back, listening carefully for any snap of branches that might give their hunters away.

"Black dresses and Phantom of the Opera masks. Definitely men. C'mon, Wes, what have you been doing with the place since I was put away? Breaks a girl's heart to see this kind of scum runnin' about," Faith grinned.

Her habit of joking over life and death still managed to get on his nerves, and he didn't try to hide his response. "Honestly – we don't know how to fight them or kill them, and you're making jokes? The only weapons I have on me are a stake and a little dagger. The crossbow's in the car. Do you have anything hidden away in that prison getup?"

"Just the butter knife from the restaurant," Faith replied, producing the blunt instrument from her sleeve with a flourish. "They're just men, I can take them. Just – not killin' em, okay with you?"

Wesley was about to snap a response, but the telltale crack of a branch came from off to their left and they both fell silent. At first, it seemed to be only one hunter, until a snap came from behind them, and another from the other side. They were very nearly surrounded.

Faith gestured straight ahead, the only direction without some indication of a hunter, and mouthed 'run, on my mark,' before shifting noiselessly into a crouch. Wesley followed hesitantly, keeping his movements slow to avoid an equally telling crunch. None of the parks in LA were THAT large – they were bound to find a road and alleys to hide in soon enough, no matter the direction they took.

And then Faith grabbed Wesley's arm and hauled him to his feet, taking off with a start. Wesley did his best to keep up, but it was no use – he was slowing her down and he could hear the yells of their pursuers. At least four; no, five men followed them. It was certainly only one or two in the morning. Someone should be out and about and friendly enough to help them, right? But it was LA – no one would be helping them... The sounds of the hunters were growing louder as they broke through the brush into an open area of the park. About two hundred meters and a fairly busy looking roadway separated them from the protection of buildings and other pedestrians. His blood was rushing, he could barely breathe, but safety was in sight.

In sight, but out of reach. The men in the robes broke through into the open space with a shout and Faith lunged to the side in hopes of avoiding any gunfire with an uneven line of movement. Someone thought faster than the Slayer, however, and she fell to the ground as a burst of something hit – it certainly wasn't a bullet. It was magic.

As Faith went down, taking Wesley with her, the black robes and white masks clicked in Wesley's mind. "Death Eaters!" he wheezed, trying to scramble to his feet. Faith looked on in confusion, sparing the time to glance back at their pursuers.

It was time she didn't have. The closest of the men raised his wand. "He said to bring in the man! Get rid of the Slayer!" a voice called from the back of the ranks.

Wesley turned and dove, trying to place himself between the advancing Death Eaters and his Slayer, but it was in vain. Two words he'd been trained to dread rang through the clearing, followed by a flash of blindingly green light. "_Avada Kedavra_." And Wesley hit the ground rolling. When he stopped, he was eye to eye with the blank stare of Faith.

He was fairly sure he started screaming at that point. He grabbed Faith's shoulders and tried to shake her awake, as though she were only sleeping. The steady thrum of her heartbeat was gone. Someone yanked him to his feet and her body was pulled from his arms and someone nearby turned his wand on the Watcher. "_Stupefy_." And then the night grew darker as Wesley lost consciousness.

Somewhere, a girl awoke to find her life changed.

-------

Elsewhere, a boy was caught in a nightmare. He watched the green light, watched the girl fall, and watched the man be taken prisoner and Apparated to Voldemort. And then he watched through Voldemort's eyes as the Dark Lord woke the man up again.

_"Veritaserum," he ordered. "I haven't the time to waste on a Muggle."_

"Squib," a robed Death Eater corrected, going down on one knee to avoid the glare of his lord. "Travers reported he comes from a line of Squibs. Here is the potion, my Lord – the traitor was interrogated with some from this very batch." He offered a vial to the figure before him.

A skeletal, deathly pale hand snatched it up, uncorked, and poured more than the recommended three drops into the prisoner's mouth. "Name?" Harry/Voldemort demanded.

"Wesley Wyndham-Pryce," the Squib reported, eyes glazing over.

"Do you work for the Watcher's Council?"

"No. They fired me," Pryce answered.

Harry nodded, seeming assured of the potion's affect. "Where is Rupert Giles?"

He seemed to be fighting it, but the potion overcame all else. "Sunnydale, California, with his daughter."

Harry smiled in victory – it was a hideous smile, made with a lipless mouth and not reaching to serpentine eyes. "What protections are on Rupert Giles?"

"I am his Secret Keeper," the Squib reported hoarsely. "I know of no other."

"Good, good," Harry said, holding out an unfamiliar hand and beckoning with grotesquely long fingers. "Wormtail, the knife? Yes... thank you for the information, Squib. You've broken the spell on your very own... but no need to keep your dirty blood around..." A dagger was settled reverently into the Dark Lord's grasp, which he then stabbed into Pryce's gut with a satisfied smirk.

Pryce gagged, eyes drifting down to the flood of red suddenly pouring from the open wound, which grew worse as Harry twisted the knife. The boy watching could feel the man's pain as vividly as though the knife rested in his own flesh. There was a haze of pain beginning to form, but he could pick up just one last command. "Lucius," the Dark Lord called, "you go to this Sunnydale place tonight. Get rid of this filth and find dear Rupert - bring him home."

The haze cleared as Harry sat up straight in bed, gasping for air and clawing at the wound in his stomach – which was no longer there. He stared down at the not-bleeding patch of skin in horror, mind still focused on the waves of pain the Squib had felt at his death. And then it all came crashing down.

Voldemort knew where Mr. Giles was, and Lucius Malfoy would be there before the day was out. This was Snape's life about to be out of their grasp, as well. Harry shot out of bed, not bothering to pull on his dressing gown or slip on so much as a pair of socks against the chilly stones of the floor. The Headmaster had to know and send his own delegation, before it was too late.

-----

August 7

The parent orientation session was beyond a nightmare. Dawn spent the whole time reading Giles' second-year Potions book under the table, rather than paying attention to the teacher, wondering if her guardian knew where to procure some powdered root of asphodel. There was an easy looking potion that would turn her hair blonde – she'd always wanted to be a blonde like Buffy. Though maybe Giles wouldn't like that, because then she'd look too much like her sister.

She imagined a twelve-year-old Giles (in a tweed suit, of course) sitting in front of a giant black cauldron and stirring a foaming, steaming glob of some potion that greatly resembled chicken soup, and chanting "Double, double, toil and trouble." Dawn couldn't help but giggle, and Giles nudged her ribs with an elbow and a frown. She hoped that Walmart guy, or whatever his name was (Hogwarts, a History just called him "You-Know-Who") would get dusted, or whatever happened to resurrected wizard guys, soon so that she could start learning magic from Giles. That'd be wicked cool: the high school wouldn't know what hit it.

Dawn wanted a wand. But Willow could do magic without a wand. She sent a glance to Giles, who looked slightly catatonic, before turning to consider the objects on the desk. What was that spell that had been the first lesson in the Charms book? She was trying to read them all in order, which was easier with the textbooks meant for eleven-year-olds than it would be for those her age, but she didn't get to practice any of the spells. Giles said it was the wand that was the danger, though, and Willow didn't need one, so maybe Dawn didn't either... she inched a pen from the desk into her lap and set it across the book. Giles still wasn't paying attention to Dawn (or to the teacher for that matter) so Dawn concentrated very hard on the pencil and whispered "_Wingardium Leviosa_," and to her delight, it lifted slowly from the page.

Unfortunately, Giles had caught sight of her action – he probably heard the incantation, the party pooper – and snagged the pen before it could rise above the height of the table. Maybe she'd have to work on that control bit... but Giles was glaring at her and the teacher noticed. "Is there a problem, Mr... er..." she peered at Dawn and consulted her notepad. "Mr. Summers?"

Dawn held back a torrent of giggles – Rupert Summers, THAT would be a dumb name. It seemed Giles thought the same, as the corner of his lip turned up in the threat of a smile. "Mr. Giles. And no, no problem. Dawn just dropped a pen." He held it up and waved it around. "I just wanted to catch it before it hit the ground and interrupted you, but I'm afraid I've managed to do that regardless. I beg your pardon."

"Oh, that's alright, Mr. Giles," the teacher practically cooed. It had to be the accent – Giles managed to get just about anything he wanted. Growing up with him around had certainly made her immune. Giles smiled winningly at the teacher, whatever her name was, before sending Dawn a Look that said without words, "we'll talk after this." Dawn huffed and sunk into her chair, going back to the book.

Hmm. Shrinking potion. That sounded promising – she could use it to shrink all of Giles' socks to get back at him for ruining her magic practice. But hey, she'd made the pen float. That meant she really was a witch, just like Giles and Willow and Tara.

She was so busy plotting the end of Giles' socks that she barely noticed when the orientation let out. Giles snagged the edge of her sleeve and leaned over. "What did I tell you about magic and drawing attention to us? It was supposed to be a secret, remember? Levitating a pencil certainly draws attention to oneself."

"I haven't got to practice it at all. I just wanted to make sure I could -" Dawn started, but then the teacher appeared at Giles' elbow. Oh, great, now she'd have to put up with her English teacher hitting on her father/guardian, or whatever she was supposed to call him now.

"Mr. Giles, thanks so much for coming today. According to our records, Dawn's sister was supposed to be here, though – are you filling in? Or are you her father, just a different last name?" The woman sent a beaming smile in Giles' direction.

Giles stiffened, keeping Dawn in his grasp, though it changed from restraining to drawing support. "Dawn's elder sister passed away in June, followed by her father. As per her mother's Will, I am her guardian. The papers are at the courthouse – perhaps you should call and get them updated?"

The look of horror crossing the teacher's face in that moment was one Dawn planned to cherish for years to come. "Oh, please pardon me – I wasn't aware – I'm very sorry for your loss, Dawn. All of them. I didn't mean to be rude."

"It's quite alright. Not your fault," Giles snapped, not at all apologetically. He tucked away Dawn's book before the teacher could ask about it. "It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Miller. I've an associate waiting for me." And before the teacher could protest, Giles linked his arm with Dawn's and half-lead, half-dragged her out of the building.

He was muttering under his breath in British-y slang that she'd only heard Spike use, which generally meant it wasn't approved for general usage. "Er- sorry about the magic, Giles, I just really really thought I should try something – I mean, I didn't even know if I could really use magic or not, you know?"

Giles pursed his lips. "I won't be teaching you magic on a Hellmouth. Can't you feel the Darkness coursing through the power here? It's all tainted, and I don't want that taint corrupting you. Didn't I make it clear?"

"No, you didn't," Dawn shot back. He recoiled and she sighed in frustration. "I didn't mean it that way, but you didn't tell me the magic or power or whatever here was bad. Willow uses magic and she's fine, why can't I?"

"She's not fine," Giles countered. "C'mon, get in the car." He crossed to his side and climbed in as Dawn did, talking all the while. "Using magic in these conditions is dangerous, which is why there isn't a significant magical community around. I didn't believe the Council's findings at first, but you've seen her doing spells... she's being pulled darker. I don't know how to stop the corruption... No magic within a hundred miles of the Hellmouth, Dawn, especially when you're untrained. I said New York and I meant it."

Dawn sighed. "Right. New York. I've got it." And Giles nodded and started the engine, and they were driving off toward the Magic Box. "But I did the magic," Dawn went on, ignoring the exasperated look on his face. "I was afraid maybe I couldn't. Maybe it was a fluke because I'm not real."

He gave a snort. "You're as real as I am. Maybe being a witch has something to do with the Slayer blood in your veins, or maybe Buffy was a witch too. We'll never know. However, no matter why you're a witch, you are one. You've got some responsibilities resulting from that – the most important of which is to keep Muggles from learning about us."

"Muggles?" What a silly British word. It sounded like the name of a Telly-Tubby or something.

"People like Xander, who haven't a lick of magic in them. Muggle. I suppose it probably used to be a derogatory phrase of some sort, but it's in common usage now. Just keep what we are secret – even from Willow and Tara, right now? I'm afraid of the Hellmouth..." he trailed off with a shrug as they stopped for a red light. "You're going to be a powerful witch, Dawn. Not everyone can lift a pencil without a wand to focus their power."

"Cool," Dawn grinned. "So tell me more about this King Walmart guy?"

The car jerked forward and Giles narrowly avoided getting into an accident as he tried to stop laughing. "Oh, Dawn – his name is Lord Voldemort, not Walmart. If he could hear that name... but witches and wizards generally won't say his name, for fear it will summon him. A load of balderdash, of course, but it might be safer to say 'You-Know-Who' rather than draw attention to yourself. He's... cunning, wildly intelligent, and above all else craves power, both magical and political. He wants to be immortal."

"How silly is that? Why not just go ask a vampire to bite him?" Dawn asked. It seemed rather obvious. Of course, then he'd have a demon instead of a soul, but if he was evil and killed people, he'd probably tarnished that plenty anyway.

"He knows it wouldn't really be him anymore. Just as Spike really isn't the William he was before Drusilla Turned him. Voldemort wants to live forever. Some of the wizard psychologists thought it might have something to do with the War – World War II, if you were wondering – because Voldemort spent the Blitz in an orphanage in London and watched the city exploding and people dying all around him. Not many people know that about Voldemort, you know. His birth name was Thomas Riddle. He tried to keep it quiet, but his followers knew." Giles parked behind the Magic Box, but made no move to go inside. "You can't tell them, right?"

"Right," Dawn sighed. She hated it when adults treated her as if her memory didn't function. "How long are we gonna be here?"

Giles shrugged. "Not long. I needed to check a few orders... and then I was thinking we could go and visit your mum and Buffy?"

Dawn nodded slowly. "I wouldn't want them to think I was neglecting them," she whispered. She hoped they were watching over her from somewhere, and she'd been terrible about visiting their graves in the past few weeks... but that would certainly keep her quiet and solemn for days. At least they were both on the hill, side by side, with a headstone for Dawn's father, too, even though his body wasn't there. They were a family again. She followed Giles into the Magic Box.

-----

"...and so they're attacking sometime tonight," Harry finished. "They called the woman they killed a... slayer. Do you know what that is?"

"Yes, I know what a slayer is," McGonagall murmured. "She is a Muggle girl who fights vampires. You'd have read about her by now, if you took Muggle Studies... but if the Slayer is dead, a new one will be Called soon. There's always a Slayer."

Dumbledore nodded slowly, face betraying a puzzle. "This Wesley Wyndham-Pryce must've been her Watcher – that's a Muggle or Squib or Wizard who devotes his or her life to the training of a Slayer, Harry. If he was Rupert Giles' Secret Keeper, that means the spell is broken... but it also means he knew Giles personally."

"He was a Squib," Harry reminded the Headmaster. "Mr. Pryce, I mean. These Watchers can be Squibs or Wizards or Muggles? That's kinda neat."

"Rupert Giles is a Watcher," McGonagall said quietly, and Dumbledore nodded solemnly. "Maybe he was assisting Pryce with this particular girl...?"

"Perhaps," the Headmaster said. "Were there any indications of what Rupert Giles was involved in? Anything dark?"

It hadn't looked like it, and Harry told them so. "And Mr. Pryce told Voldemort under veritaserum that Mr. Giles was with his daughter, too. Do you think she's a witch? Maybe she goes to an American school?"

"Undoubtedly a witch," McGonagall mused, "though maybe self-taught... Mr. Giles' bloodline is impeccable – the Malfoys would be hard pressed to come up with a purer family tree. Severus... Professor Snape might have had the right idea when he said to search for Rupert Giles. If he's raised his child among Muggles, maybe his opinion of them has changed."

"You will be included in the party to meet him," Dumbledore decided, shifting through a stack of parchments. "I'll need three or four others. Preferably those he might trust... any suggestions?"

"What about Tonks?" Harry asked, of course, always eager to have the chance to see the Auror, especially in the aftermath of Sirius' death. Tonks had become almost a sister, and Professor Lupin an uncle or a parent – Lupin and the Weasleys.

Dumbledore shook his head. "She's on a mission for me, currently... plus, she's a bit unorthodox in her... er... methods." He meant clumbsy, of course. "I'm not sure Mr. Giles would survive the encounter."

"I want Bill Weasley and Remus Lupin," McGonagall said definitively. She seemed to have taken the news of her own involvement quite easily – Harry wondered how many missions she'd been involved with in the last war. "Both will keep their heads in a crisis, Remus would be known to Mr. Giles as a peacemaker, since Rupert had left Hogwarts before the ... er..." she peered at Harry, "the incident of Severus' last year? Yes, well, Mr. Giles shouldn't be too hostile, and Bill greatly resembles his father, who Giles would know from the last war as a dissident of the Ministry. Do you think they'll accept?"

"Remus, yes... but Bill's off on a mission." Harry hadn't known that. Last he'd heard, Bill was living back at home, supporting his family from the London branch of Gringotts. "We'll get Charles. He looks enough like his father for it to work the same, and he's level-headed enough."

"I want to go," Harry shot in. He could see the opposition forming on their face, so he forged on. "I know exactly what Voldemort's planning, I saw the Watcher and the Slayer get killed, and I know what Mr. Giles and Miss Giles look like now, since he's bound to have changed in however many years and you've never seen his daughter. It makes sense. And with everybody else along, I'd be perfectly safe."

McGonagall snorted. "No one is perfectly safe. Rupert had a Secret Keeper and managed to be put into danger. We can't lose you, Harry."

"I'll stay out of the fighting," Harry offered.

Professor McGonagall shook her head emphatically. "I refuse to take students -"

"All of those you'll be taking have been your students," Dumbledore noted, peering over the top of his glasses. "Minerva, dear, having Harry there might help to reassure Miss Giles of our intentions? I've no doubt Rupert's filled her head with stories of anti-Slytherin prejudice since her birth. She might not recognize Harry, but if she does, she'll know she's important. And she is – she's the child of a Death Eater."

"Having her working for us could be useful," Professor McGonagall admitted. She took a long look at Harry, pursing her lips, before giving a sharp nod. "Fine. We'll take you. You'll have a portkey and will be in charge of coaxing Miss Giles over and getting her to Hogwarts safely, even if her father gives us trouble. And if there's any doubt over the safety of the situation, can I trust you to use the portkey as a defensive measure?"

"Of course, professor," Harry replied, trying not to bounce in his chair in excitement. He was going to America! Well, only for long enough to pick up a very lovely girl, but he'd set foot on the colonies!


	5. Envious Triumph

Title: Counted as Clay Jars

Author: Indarae

Rating: PG-13

Pairings: Dawn/Harry... a little. Hints of Joyce/Giles in the past.

Summary: With Dawn's father absent after Buffy's death, care for the younger Summers falls to one Rupert Giles. However, even as life returns to normal, pieces of his past come back to threaten the future.

A/N: The conclusion is in my fingertips, waiting to be written... There will be 13 chapters, plus an epilogue. I'm hoping to post a bit more regularly, now, but my current computer is craptacular. It's time for him to be retired. Hopefully, he'll last out the summer.

Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

Part Five — Envious Triumph

August 7

It was just before dusk as they stood in front of the graves. They didn't have much time before full dark came upon them and they were forced to retreat to the safety of lighted civilization. "Are your things packed and in the trunk?" Giles asked quietly.

Dawn sighed deeply. "Yeah. Are you sure this is the right decision?"

The news had come only hours earlier: Wesley and Faith were dead, found in a park in LA near Angel's hotel home. Wesley had been stabbed to death, but there was an odd substance in his bloodstream. Faith... no one knew how she'd died. Her face was frozen in shock, and she'd simply... stopped.

But Giles had told her the truth. Faith had been murdered by wizards, probably, and they were most likely tracking down Giles. And now, with Wesley dead... they were in very serious danger because of some spell or another. Dawn kneeled to trace the words on the graves one more time before their desperate flight to Canada would begin. She wouldn't miss Sunnydale — but she'd miss Willow and Tara, Xander and Anya, and she wouldn't be able to say goodbye. It was too dangerous.

And then she felt a prickling along her spine. "Giles?" she whispered, standing slowly. "What's going on?"

"Someone's watching us," Giles replied, equally quiet. He grabbed her shoulder tightly. "I want you to run, Dawn, on my mark. I'll hold them off — you've got to get to Willow, she'll be able to protect you."

Panic filled her mind. "No. I won't. I'm not losing you, too!"

"Shh!" he hissed. He reached into his jacket pocket, where his wand rested. "I love you very much, Dawn. I'm so, so sorry to have brought you into the middle of this mess..."

"No," she was begging, fighting down hysterics, "don't leave me behind. Take me too!"

"They can't focus on you in the trees," Giles continued, and over his shoulder, she caught sight of a thin, dark figure. "Get help — get to Nomin Alley, and contact Albus Dumbledore." He leaned over to plant a kiss on her forehead. "Now RUN!"

She was nudged toward the dark trees firmly as he spun around and whipped out his wand. Unable to do more than follow orders... she ran. Echoes of his words followed her; words she sometimes identified from his books and sometimes didn't. "_Expelliarmus_!" and "_Stupefy_!" and "_Impedimenta_!" Her sobs slowed her only a bit.

And then, only steps into the trees, another figure popped into being from nowhere, directly in her path. He was tall and silver haired, his features masked in white and a black cloak covering his body. His hands were gloved in white as well, as he raised an ebony-coloured wand. "The Dark Lord wants you, too," the figure whispered.

Dawn didn't recognize the spell that came next, nor did she feel the effects, as something slammed into her and sent her hurtling to the side. The robed man yelled in frustration, but the breath had been knocked from her. A man — black haired — had pushed her out of the way of the hex and was grabbing for her hand forcing it onto a moldy-looking ladies' shoe. "Hold on!" he screamed, and the cloaked man turned to point his wand at the both of them. She didn't recognize the curse again, but as a green curtain of light rushed at them, she felt a swirling sensation in the pit of her stomach, and the green world tilted.

Then, all of a sudden, they weren't in the graveyard anymore. They were in a circular room, still collapsed on the floor, surrounded by portraits of distinguished-looking men and women and very comfortable-looking furnature. Dawn was rather unhappy to be on the floor, especially when the armchair looked so soft. Giles, however... the sobs bubbled up again. "Leave me alone!" she shrieked, shoving her assailant as hard as she could. "I can't leave him behind! He's going to die! He can't leave me, too!"

The man pulled himself to his knees, and Dawn finally realized that he wasn't quite a man — he was a boy around her age, skinny and wearing dorky glasses and clothes too big for him. "Sorry — didn't mean to grab you like that, but Malfoy was about to do an Imperius on you. Don't worry about your Dad. McGonagall and Charlie will help him out."

The unnamed boy seemed a little disoriented, and tottered a bit as he climbed to his feet. Dawn took that as her chance and snagged the wand right from his fist, pointing it back at him. "Where am I?" she snapped. "How do I get home?"

He looked affronted rather than scared. "You're at Hogwarts! In the Headmaster's office. Didn't your dad -"

"Answer me. How do I get home?" She got to her feet, backing away from him a little to peer at the items on the shelves surrounding them. The paintings were staring at her — and moving, just like in Giles' books.

"Well — we got here by portkey, of course, but it's only one way. McGonagall will bring your dad here. Er... we could call your mum, if you want."

Dawn gave a snort, blinking back sudden tears. "My 'mum' is dead. Now..." She paused, thinking back to Giles' words. The mark thingy on his arm was a sign of the group he was running from... it didn't appear anywhere in the room, though. "Roll up your sleeve. The left one."

The boy lifted his hands. "Hold up. I'm not a -"

"_Impedimenta_!" she snapped, remembering Giles' textbooks and flicking the wand in his direction. The spell was uncomfortable — it felt as though she was forcing something through the wand, though easier than the pencil she'd floated at the orientation — but it worked anyway, and the boy froze. Dawn crossed the room and rolled up the sleeve for him, only to find... nothing. She sagged with relief and lowered herself into a fluffy chair, leaving the boy as he was.

A door in the side of the room opened and Dawn shot to her feet again, pointing the wand at the figure who entered. He was old — terribly old, robed in turquoise blue and wearing a tall, pointy hat. His kind, blue eyes peered over half-moon glasses and his hair and beard flowed long in white. "There's no need for that, Miss Giles."

It took a moment for her to catch what he'd said — she spent a minute glancing around for Giles — but she felt no need to correct him. She'd read about the prejudice against people who didn't have wizard parents, so maybe pretending was the best way. "I just want to know that he's okay," she whispered, letting her body collapse back into the chair. "I don't want to be alone again."

"Rupert was always a strong wizard. Do not worry too much. Now then... let us give Mr. Potter here his freedom? He was only trying to help." The man moved over to sit behind the heavy oak desk and waved his hand dismissively.

The boy — Mr. Potter — unfroze and spun around to face Dawn, scowling. "Hey! I'm not a Death Eater! I saved you from a Death Eater! Can I have my wand back?"

She shrugged and tossed it at him, holding back a snicker as he fumbled to catch it. "Who are you, then?"

"Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of this school," the old man said.

Dawn thought back to her reading, remembering the name cropping up over and over again, and to Giles gasping out the name as he sent her running. "I guess you're the good guys then. So where is he?"

"My deputy is no doubt explaining the severity of the situation to him. One of his school mates has been kidnapped, and we are in desperate need of his help. Now, then, Miss Giles... do you have a first name?"

"Dawn," she muttered.

The door burst open and a tall man with a red ponytail hurried in. "He's coming up, Headmaster. He needs a new wand — Macnair ripped his right from his hand and snapped it."

And then Giles was there, charging across the room to pull her into a hug and whisper to her ear. "God, I was so worried... we still need to be careful, I don't know what the political climate is, but Dumbledore's a good man..."

"Giles -" Dawn whispered back, but he cut her off.

"You have to pretend to be my daughter. They might not treat you right if you don't," he muttered before giving her a kiss on the forehead and raising his voice just slightly. "How did they get you here?"

She thought back to the boy's words, but couldn't remember. "There was this guy — one of the Death Eaters, but I could see his hair, it was long and blond — and he appeared right in front of me, and then that kid over there -" Dawn gestured to the boy in the chair.

Giles cut her off again. "Good Lord. That's Harry Potter."

The name was familiar somehow, but Dawn couldn't care less. "G- Dad," she snapped, grabbing his attention faster than she'd thought possible. "He used a key thing and poof, I was here."

"Portkey, Dawn," he corrected, still holding her in a hug. He turned his attention to Dumbledore. "She needs a wand and instruction. Then I'll help you. I couldn't teach her on the run."

The old man nodded. "A wand and instruction. And a new wand for you. I'll have Ollivander travel here himself, tomorrow. You'll help us locate Severus?"

"Keep her safe, and I'll do anything," Giles promised, rhythmically stroking Dawn's hair. She caught the Potter kid staring at her enviously, and the old man smiling in triumph. The good guys, apparently — she only hoped they weren't being deceived.

------

Willow could tell something was wrong the moment she entered the courtyard in front of Giles' place. The door was closed still, but something felt wrong about the place. She knocked loudly on the door, but no one answered.

The key was under the mat, like always, and she let herself in. "Giles? Dawnie?" she called. Only her voice rang back. And it was then that she noticed things were out of place. Drawers were thrown open and gone through, the weapon trunk was open but empty, and the books on the bookshelf — most were in messy piles on the floor, but for a short stack lying open on the shelves.

She crossed to figure out what was going on, only to realize she'd never seen the set of books before. They were texts — textbooks for magic. The pictures moved, the potions were advanced, and the margins of the books were full of notes for Ripper. Giles was hiding something from them...

And then she heard movement on the steps. She spun around to find a black cloaked figure perched on the step, pointing a stick at her, long silvery hair showing from behind a Phantom-of-the-Opera mask. "Hold still, little Muggle, and it won't hurt a bit," the man said, giving a cruel laugh. With a whispered spell — she thought she recognized the word as Latin; "Crucio," she was hit by a wave of pain and fell to her knees.

------

Dawn was dismissed, just like a little girl. She huffed, following Harry Potter down the stairs. "They always do this to me. Buffy used to make me leave all the time. Willow does it too, and so does G-Dad. I'm fifteen whole years old, how come they treat me like I'm five?" It wasn't intended as a question to the boy, but he answered anyway.

"They do it to me, too. They make excuses... but I think it all comes back to being underage," he shrugged. "Dumbledore told me to put you up in one of the Gryffindor dorms."

"I know. I heard," Dawn snapped. She didn't like his attitude, and she hadn't liked the way Giles cringed when the old man made that announcement. "We were supposed to be going to Canada, you know. Not Britain. People want to kill us here." She snorted. "People want to kill us everywhere."

Harry stopped at the bottom of a long stairway and sat down, patting the stone for her to join him. She didn't, but he started asking questions anyway. "So the Death Eaters chased you into a graveyard? I wonder what it is with them and graveyards."

"We were there already. Visiting my mom and my sister."

He gave a grim smile. "I wish I knew where my mum was buried." He sighed and looked down to his hands. "At least they left bodies to visit."

Dawn glared, finally taking the offered seat on the step. "Somehow that doesn't make losing my sister and my mom within four months of each other any better." Not to mention her dad, though she banished thoughts from her mind.

"My godfather died in June," Harry whispered. "He died fighting... but he didn't leave a body behind to bury."

"You can always put up a memorial," Dawn said, thinking of the fake grave for her own father, whose body was never returned from his murder in Europe. She paused, watching the boy stare at his feet and decided it was time to change the subject. "So... why was... Dad pissed that I'm staying in Griffindope, or whatever."

That was enough to snap the boy out of self-pity. "Gryffindor," he growled. "And it's likely because your dad was a Slytherin."

"You say Slytherin like it's a bad thing," Dawn growled back, though she hadn't a clue whether or not it was.

"More Dark wizards come out of Slytherin than any other House, bloody snakes," Harry spat.

"Oh, so that means I'm evil?" Dawn snarled. "I'm evil, just because my dad was in a dorm where evil people slept?"

Harry shook his head. "It's not just a dormitory, it's a way of being — it's who you are! The Sorting Hat looks into your brain and can tell you what traits you have: Gryffindors are brave, Ravenclaws are clever, Hufflepuffs are loyal, and Slytherins are evil."

"Slytherins are cunning, Mr. Potter," came a low voice from up the stairs. It was a frowning witch in a tall hat and shimmering dark blue robes. "You'd be smart not to badmouth one Slytherin in front of another, you know."

The boy turned tomato red, and Dawn couldn't help but laugh. "Professor Sinistra — I'm sorry, I didn't mean — you were a Slytherin? I didn't know..." he bumbled.

The witch, presumably Professor Sinistra, descended the rest of the stairs and offered a hand to Dawn. "Celeste Sinistra, former Slytherin and current Astronomy Mistress. Would you be a new student?"

"No," Dawn said shortly, "don't think so. Dawn s- Giles. My dad's -"

"Rupert will be helping to find Severus," Professor Sinistra said. "Minerva mentioned it. I'm so glad, Miss Giles, so glad... you're to be put up with the Gryffindors until he's done, then?"

She shrugged. "I suppose so. He's the only one here, though, right? And I should probably be back home for school..."

"Where do you go?" the woman asked, looking uncomfortable as she took a seat next to Dawn. Harry, however, looked more uncomfortable at having a teacher crouching there with them, so Dawn refused to move. "Salem Academy, I'm guessing? I'd doubt Rupert would send you anywhere else."

"Er..." she blushed, unable to come up with a fake name, since witches would certainly know the names of their own schools. "Sunnydale High School. We're — we're hiding, you see. No one was supposed to be able to -"

"A Muggle school!" The woman sounded delighted. "I knew he'd get over the old prejudice! Tell me, Miss Giles, how do they take notes so that students can read them, when they don't have magic?"

Dawn raised an eyebrow. "Um... a chalkboard. They write on them with... chalk."

"While teaching?" The professor practically squealed. "What these Muggles come up with!"

"I should show her to Gryffindor Tower, where she's staying, Professor," Harry broke in, climbing to his feet. "It was... er... nice seeing you?"

Professor Sinistra patted Dawn on the shoulder encouragingly. "Well, then, hope to see you in Slytherin if you're around for the year. I'll be — er — filling in, you know."

Dawn didn't, but she wasn't about to say anything — she was too confused to bother. It seemed as though they expected her to have all sorts of knowledge about the magic world; and it wasn't a bad expectation, considering that her father was supposed to be a wizard. She gave a weak smile and nodded to the professor before following Harry up the stairs. "Why's she filling in?" Dawn finally whispered.

"Snape's missing. That's why your dad's being followed by Voldemort, and why Dumbledore sent us to find you. Professor Snape was kidnapped, and was tortured until he gave information. Dumbledore wants your dad to help find him."

At that, Dawn stopped short in the hall. "Wait. You want my dad to go hunt down that Walmart guy? The one trying to KILL him?" She shook her head violently. "NO. No way. My sister gave herself for the world — he's not gonna. He's all I have left."

"My godfather gave his life for the Light! He was all I have left! Some things are worth dying for," Harry snapped.

"Yeah? So he died for you? Maybe he should've lived for you. He died, and now you're living at your high school! How pathetic is that?" She stormed onward, stopping only when she realized the was directionless.

Harry's face blazed red in anger and he raised his fist threateningly. "Shut up. Don't think you can know where I'm coming from! My whole life has been one huge sacrifice for the Light — if it hadn't been for me, your dad would probably be dead already!"

"So quit judging me!" Dawn yelled back. "I've given enough already — my life's been a sacrifice, too! I don't care about you or what you think or what you've done; it's no bearing on my life! All I want is my sister back -" she paused, and lowered her voice, whispering the last so that Harry dropped his fist and took a half step forward to listen. "All I want is my sister back, and all I've got is a father who kept secrets from me. So quit judging me, or so help me, I'll punch your face in — and trust me, I can do it. My sister was the Slayer."

Harry blanched and hung back, obviously affected somehow by Dawn's words, though she wasn't sure which ones. She followed him down the hall in silence, behind a portrait of a large woman in pink who opened the door only to the words "Bounty Bar," and into a cozy, red room where a note was pinned on the mantle. Harry read it silently before giving instructions in an oddly restrained voice. "Professor Dumbledore's decided you'll be sleeping in one of the dormitories on the girls' side. There are some robes for you to wear there, as well. It says your dad's decided to enroll you for the year."

"So I get to wear the funky hat?" She remembered it from her reading — some hat that decided what dorm the students lived in. Dawn figured it must be pretty impressive looking; maybe purple brocade with a big white feather sticking out the brim.

"Right. Funky hat," Harry snorted. "You're staying in the seventh year's dorm, second to the top. I'm going to bed, I'm in the sixth years dorm on the boys' side. Don't bother me, and I'll leave you alone." And before Dawn could say another word, he dashed up a curving stone staircase and out of sight.

She pouted for a few moments before deciding it was time to go off and find the place where she'd be staying — after all, there were supposed to be clothes there for her, and she loved clothes. She looked out of place when standing next to Professor Sinistra or the woman Professor Dumbledore called Minerva. They had flowing dress things, kinda like the robes she remembered wearing when she was an angel in a Christmas pageant when she was four or five.

Robes. And Professor Sinistra thought Muggles were weird.

The room was round, and of the six beds, only one was covered with sheets, which were in a lucious red. There were draperies hanging on the four-poster bed in the same colour, and folded nicely was a pile of clothes, which Dawn eagerly tore into. However, what she found gave her pause. There were a number of conservative grey skirts, a whole pile of white Oxford shirts, grey sweaters, and a black tie with a funky shield on it. "What the hell?" she growled. She wanted a dress like Arwen in that movie, with flowing sleeves and billowing skirts, not some nasty school uniform like the stupid Catholic school kids at Sacred Heart had to wear! And now that she thought about it... Harry had been wearing an Oxford shirt and grey slacks, and a red and yellow striped tie.

Buffy would've been laughing at her now — Dawn the magical Catholic schoolgirl. She tried to suppress the tears that threatened to flow over thoughts of her sister, her changed life, and the dark possibilities of the future only to find that holding them back was futile; and the tears came anyway.


	6. Chameleon

**Title: Counted as Clay Jars**

Author: Indarae

Rating: PG-13

Pairings: Dawn/Harry... a little. Hints of Joyce/Giles in the past.

Summary: With Dawn's father absent after Buffy's death, care for the younger Summers falls to one Rupert Giles. However, even as life returns to normal, pieces of his past come back to threaten the future.

A/N: Ten (or eleven, if I decide to make the last two smaller) chapters plus epilogue, after the final cut. . I finally get to move on to some other works now, yay! Finishing a long-time project (this one has been in the works for almost 2 years now) is always a relief.

Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

Part Six — Chameleon

August 8

Harry hadn't dreamed of a ginger-haired girl before. Or maybe girl wasn't the word; she was older than Harry, but younger than a professor. She was Bill's age, abouts, or maybe Charlie's, and Harry could see the power seeping off of her. With Professor Snape gone, his Occlumency lessons had halted indefinitely and as a result, Harry saw the woman through Voldemort's own eyes. She refused to cower while Lucius Malfoy taunted and tortured her, yet Harry/Voldemort stayed out of her line of vision and refused to intervene either way.

It had grown obvious that she didn't know where Rupert Giles was hiding out. She knew him though; knew him as a bumbling professorial librarian; knew him as a Muggle. She acted like a Muggle, though her desperate attempts to summon wandless magic proved she, in fact, was anything but. Malfoy had thought her a magic-less peion, until a spell knocked him off his feet.

Malfoy was using the Cruciatus again, perhaps the fifth time in the last hour, and the short spurts were taking their toll. Her whole body spasmed even when the spell ended and her eyes — her eyes were wild with fear, anger, and desperation. She was spilling the names of everyone she'd ever known. They just weren't the answers the Dark Lord wanted to know.

"When was the last time you saw Rupert Giles, Mudblood?" Lucius demanded, training his ebony wand upon her fallen form.

She'd stopped sobbing long ago, tears beyond her. "In the morning... he was at the Magic Box in the morning... he was taking Dawn to visit B-Buffy's grave..." She turned her head a bit, seeking privacy for silent, tearless sobs.

The names of Dawn and Buffy had come up many times over the hours; so had Xander and Mrs. Summers, Angel and Spike, Jenny and Amy. The names were worthless to the Dark Lord and so Harry found himself examining the aura of power surrounding her. She was strong; strong beyond the level of most wizards he was familiar with except for Dumbledore and Voldemort himself. In her was the potential for a very powerful advocate of the Light — or of the Dark, if her reeducation was done correctly.

Finally, Harry glanced to the side and caught sight of his serpentine reflection in a close-by mirror. He raised his wand and tapped himself on the head, muttering the words to the Chameleon Charm under his breath, and was greeted instead with the visage of the Tom Riddle of old: dark hair, dark eyes, handsome features, and innocent expression. This Tom Riddle looked no older than thirty or thirty-five but the smile that crossed his features was still so evil that Harry tried to shudder, though he had no control over the body he inhabited.

And then Harry was walking forward to speak to Malfoy, into the girl's line of sight. "Lucius, leave the poor girl alone. She has nothing you want. She is tired and pained."

Malfoy whirled and seemed surprised Harry's outside form, sinking quickly to his knees. "Of course, my Lord. Forgive me. Shall I rid the world of her stench?"

"I smell nothing unpleasant," Harry found himself replying, sniffing haughtily. "You've been mistreating her."

"Shall I — shall I make up a room for her?" Lucius cringed. Such a room would no doubt be in Malfoy Manor, and knowing Lucius, he'd insist upon scrubbing down the abode after the Muggleborn guest left.

Harry's host had other plans. "A room, Lucius, for an... extended length of time. She will require plenty of time to recover from your abuse. Be wary, or I shall have to punish you."

"Of course, my Lord. I am at your command, my Lord," Lucius whispered, taking the deepest bow his kneeling position could allowed.

When Lucius had bowed his way from sight, Harry approached the girl and offered a hand to get her to her feet. She took it cautiously. "Wh-why are you h-helping?" she croaked, voice raw from screaming.

"Why, you were in pain," Harry said simply, giving a wan smile. "We only wish to end your suffering."

"What do you know of my suffering?" she whispered, quaking arm brushing tears away. "Wh-why should I believe any word you say?"  
  
Don't believe, Harry willed her, don't believe! But his body smiled wanly, and reached out a hand to help her up. "I know only what you tell me... and you need believe only my words — because I will never lie to you."

"That could be a lie," she persisted.

"It could be," the Dark Lord answered. "But I have no use for lies anymore; the truth suits my aims much better. So come, Willow Rosenberg — I will tell you any truth you wish to know. I will help you end your suffering."

She eyed him warily. "What's your real name, then? It can't be Lord Voldiemart."

Harry felt the surge of anger coursing through his host body's veins, but the smile persisted. "Lord Voldemort, Miss Rosenberg. And no, that was not the name I had at birth. I was called Tom Marvolo Riddle. Few know it; count yourself lucky that I have promised not to lie to you." He extended his hand a bit closer. "I will teach you to detect lies, Miss Rosenberg."

"Will you teach me real magic?" she whispered. There was something in her eyes; something darker than Harry had imagined could be there and he felt fear for the girl's future. The Dark Lord nodded, and Harry's fear increased tenfold as the girl tentatively reached out and took Lord Voldemort's hand.

------

Dawn was awakened by screams coming from somewhere above her. She was disoriented by her new surroundings and had to take a long moment to realize her current situation could be attributed to Giles' bad choice in friends before she figured where the noise was coming from. It was that stupid, stuck up Griffindope wanker (to borrow a Spike-word), Potter.

She considered leaving him to whatever fate awaited him for a short moment before coming to the conclusion that the screams would be more of a bother than running up to help him. Uncaring of the fact she was wearing only the tshirt she'd brought on her back (the provided nightclothes looked like something Grandma Summers would sleep in), Dawn forced her way into the dormitory and hurried to Harry's side.

His nightmare looked to equal any of Buffy's slayer dreams. He was tangled in the red sheets, wetness of tearstains glinting on his cheeks in the dim lights and shouting incoherently, names and words. She reached out to grab his shoulder and shake him awake when he rocketed to a sitting position, eyes glinting a mad red, and grabbed her first. "It's only just begun," Harry hissed in a voice unlike his own.

Dawn jerked back, letting out a reflexive shriek. The red faded and he slumped to the side, releasing her shoulders so that she tripped back and landed on her back end on the floor. Ignoring the pain flashing through her back from the jarring impact on the cold stone, she launched herself for his wand, which she noticed hanging over the edge of his bedside table. She held it like a stake and balanced on the balls of her feet, ready to make a run for Giles, if she needed to.

However, Harry looked as frightened of her as she was of him. "What are you doing in my room?" he squeaked, scooting away from her across the bed only to find himself throroughly tangled in the sheets.

"What do you mean, what am I doing? Shouldn't I be asking you why the hell you grabbed me like that? Or why you were screaming like the apocalypse was here again?" Her hand shaking, she adjusted the wand to its proper position. "Your eyes were all freaky red, and now they're green!"

"Red?" He pushed the covers down and grabbed his glasses from the nightstand, shoving them onto his face — his boxers had little roaring lions on them, Dawn noted dully, her brain caught between the light that shone red on his eyes and his apparent missing time. "My eyes were red? And — I grabbed you?"

He seemed almost concerned, which was certainly the opposite of his irritability the evening before. "Yeah. Freaky demon-red eyes and ouchy grip." She rolled up the sleeve of her tshirt with her free hand to expose finger-shaped red marks, already starting to darken into bruises. "See? Didn't do this to myself, y'know."

"I'm sorry," he muttered. "I don't remember..." Something seemed to connect in his his mind and he grabbed for his bathrobe. "Bloody hell. I've got to send an owl... this is really an emergency..."

"Well I'm coming, too!" Dawn waved the wand around as threateningly as she could manage. What did animals have to do with anything? He was clearly out of his mind. "If you go all red-eyed again, somebody had better stop you."

He gave a snort. "I doubt you could manage it, if it's what I think it is."

"Managed to stun you quite nicely yesterday," she shot back, putting her hands on her hips.

That seemed to draw the teenage boy's attention to the fact she wasn't wearing pants. He flushed red, averted his eyes, and offered his red bathrobe (embroidered with roaring lions along the lapels) which she pulled on haphazardly, not bothering to tie it. "D-didn't they give you a nightgown?" He still wasn't looking at her.

"It looked like my grandmother's," she snapped back. "I'm not wearing that. Now, if this is such an emergency, shouldn't we be going?" Hopefully they'd run into Giles in the hall, so she could explain how crazy Potter had turned out to be.

He glared and rummaged around for a big black cloak (also embroidered with a lion... she was getting sick to death of lions...) which he threw around himself to cover his boxer and tshirt combination, and slipped on a pair of holey socks. "The floors are cold."

"Not caring," Dawn countered. While he put on his shoes, she glanced out the window to the dawn sky. The pinks and oranges coming over the hills of... wherever they were... well, it was pretty, to say the least. It was a shame that such a sunrise had to be wasted on a butthead like Harry Potter. "What was your nightmare about?"

Potter was climbing to his feet, but he froze. "I'd rather not -"

"Not caring," Dawn repeated. "You went all weird-eyed because of it. You were screaming and woke me up, and I'm crabby. Now spill."

He looked bemused, but answered as he led the way out of the tower, Dawn following with his wand. "I dream about Voldemort. I can see what he's doing, sometimes, when he's particularly happy or murderous. There was a woman that one of the Death Eaters was torturing... she was Muggleborn, but Voldemort saw she was powerful and convinced her to learn from him, once he got the Death Eater to stop... does this make any sense to you?"

Dawn scoffed. "Of course. What do I look like, an idiot? Torture, lady, baddies, seduced by the Dark Side. Is that why we're running around before normal people are awake to visit birds?"

"Owls," Potter snapped. "We're going to send a letter to someone who'll know all about my eyes going red. He can see through my eyes and I can see through his — we're connected. And... how can you not know about Owl post? Didn't your dad tell you anything?"

"No," she said shortly. "He didn't. Not a thing. I'm a magical virgin, or something. He hid it from everyone — my sister, my mom, all my sister's friends. She was the Slayer, and he could've helped! He could've saved -" She cut herself off, reaching out to catch herself against the wall before she started crying again, and this time in the presence of someone she was starting to loathe. Giles couldn't have saved Buffy. Giles couldn't have defeated Glory. He couldn't have kept her from jumping into the vortex that Dawn's blood opened and couldn't keep her life from ending as she plummeted through to the ground. She was dead before she hit pavement.

Potter was watching her. "The Slayer that died the other night — that was your sister?"

"No. That was Faith... my sister's replacement," she said bitterly. The wand slipped from her hand and Potter caught it, helping her to sink to the ground, where she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped herself tightly in his bathrobe. "She was a crazy psycho. And now there's a new Slayer somewhere, and she'll go off and get herself killed, too, and leave her family behind because it's the right thing to do. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it, Buffy told me. Well she's right — but I'm stuck here, aren't I."

Silently, Potter took a seat beside Dawn and wrapped himself in his cloak. He picked at a stray thread coming from the lion's mane before speaking very softly. "I didn't grab you and shake you right then, earlier. I think that was Voldemort. I think he's finally figured out how to control my actions." He rested his chin on his knees. "Professor Snape was supposed to teach me how to keep Voldemort from getting in my head, but I did something stupid, and he kicked me out of his office. Now Dumbledore doesn't have the time to teach me and I'm a danger to everybody."

"Huh. Guess we're more alike than I thought. I'm a weapon, too." Dawn gave a twisted smile. "My blood was the key to opening a hole between this world and Hell. My sister gave her blood to close it. She saved my life, at the cost of hers."

"My godfather," Harry said shortly. He scrubbed at his face with the palms of his hands. "Voldemort sent me a vision. I saw Sirius - that's my godfather — being tortured. So I ran off to save him... turns out it was a trap. Sirius showed up later, when Death Eaters were trying to kill me. He got hit with a spell... and fell through this arch. The veil between life and death." He sighed. "I don't know if he was dead when he fell." There were a few moments of silence while Dawn stared at her hands and Potter picked at his fingernails. "I haven't really told anyone about it," he said haltingly. "Not since it happened. I haven't talked about it."

Dawn nodded, not looking at him. "Nobody understands what it feels like to lose everything in just one moment, like that. It's like... something coming down to crush you. I don't know, I can't explain it. It just hurts. And it doesn't go away, like everybody says."

"It's just pain and loss and the end of hope." Harry stopped after that, and they sat quietly, propped against the stones in the hallway.

------

Harry didn't remember dozing off in the hallway, but he woke to find Professor McGonagall's stern face in an uncharacteristic smirk of good humor. "Good morning, Mr. Potter, Miss Giles. Is there a cushioning charm on the wall I was unaware of?"

He could feel his face flashing red as he jumped to his feet. Unfortunately, he discovered Giles had been leaning against him, and she went sprawling across the corridor, bare feet and long legs poking out from under his bathrobe. That fact served only to make him more flustered. "Er — Professor, we were just -" And then everything came back into focus. "I had a dream, Professor, another one about Voldemort. There was a woman... er... she had red hair, and she was Muggleborn, and Lucius Malfoy was torturing her, but Voldemort made him stop."

Before he could go on, Giles was standing at his side, patting her hair down and butting in. "He was all screaming and stuff and he woke me up. I thought he was being attacked. So I ran upstairs, and he woke up — his eyes were red and nasty, and he grabbed my arm, bruised me... he said 'it's all just begun' or something, and then he snapped out of it and he couldn't remember anything!"

"Voldemort offered to teach the Muggleborn woman magic, and she accepted!" Harry offered, trying to finish his tale. McGonagall looked flustered, glancing back and forth between the two of them.

"Go, get dressed," she ordered. "You can tell your tales to Headmaster Dumbledore at the breakfast table, in five minutes. Olivander will be here in just half an hour, and you'll need to be presentable, Miss Giles."

Giles' eyes narrowed. "Wait, there. I've got a bone to pick with you. Why're all the clothes up in my room all Catholic school girl?"

McGonagall looked at her blankly. "If you're referring to the school uniforms... your father has seen fit to enroll you for the coming school year. He mentioned something about it being safer than your previous school? When you have a wand, we'll talk about getting into Hogsmeade to visit Madame Malkin's to get you fitted for proper robes. And we'll Sort you in good time."

"Goody," Giles muttered, crossing her arms. She turned to Harry. "I can't find my way back to the painting, so you're gonna have to lead."

Harry sighed and bid good morning to Professor McGonagall. It hardly seemed possible after their heart-to-heart, but Dawn Giles had become just as disagreeable as the evening before. She was Slytherin material through and through. At least he had his wand back — it was tucked in his waistband, though with what Mad-Eye Moody told him about blasting buttocks off, it might be even a worse place than his back pocket. Flushing unconsciously, he grabbed his wand from its place and carried it instead. "Bounty Bar," he told the Fat Lady.

"Why the password?" Giles asked as they climbed into the Common Room. "It seems so... goofy. What's a bounty bar?"

"Muggle candy bar. Coconut covered in chocolate... and the passwords insure that the other Houses can't get in and sabotage ours, I suppose. They're changed every so often, so you won't know the right one once you've been Sorted." She really didn't know anything, he mused. She sounded just like... just like he had, as a first-year. The comparison took him aback as they parted at her door. He was acting just like Hermione at her worst.

------

"Stupid Houses," Dawn muttered, buttoning up the white Oxford shirt and adjusting the pleated, grey wool skirt. "Stupid uniforms." She pulled on the knee-high socks, but left them pooled down around her ankles in protest, along with wearing her Doc Marten boots. "Stupid school." The tie was draped around her neck loosely, as she hadn't a clue how to tie it. The cloak was left folded on the chair beside the bed. "Stupid Voldemort," she finished, charging for the door.

Potter was waiting in the big red room at the bottom of the stairs, and he broke into giggles at her outfit. "What the bloody hell are you wearing your tie like that for? McGonagall'll have fits over your shoes!"

"I can't tie a tie," she snapped, taking the black thing off and tossing it in Potter's face. "Why don't you do it? And I like my boots — they're Doc Martens, and it's not the school year, so I'm not wearing those dopey shoes around!"

"Right, right," Potter said distractedly, settling the tie around his neck and doing it up without looking at it. He handed it back and straightened his own red and yellow striped one while she put hers on — loosely. "I suppose they'll Sort you today, too. Before your dad's off on his mission."

She didn't want to think about it, and decided not to respond. "You'll send whatever you were going to send to... whomever it was, this morning?"

"I have no idea what you just said," he countered, climbing out the portrait hole ahead of her.

"The stuff. About possession and Lord Waldamart and the scary red eyes?" She shrugged. "You were all 'emergency!' about it, and now it's not important?"

"It's important. I'll see to it after breakfast," Potter said decisively. "Oh — and his name's Voldemort. You keep saying it wrong."

Dawn shrugged. "Stupid name. I couldn't care less what it is."

"It's an anagram."

"So?" Dawn snorted. "I don't care if there's a secret decoder ring. It's a dumb-ass name, for a rotting baddie, and my dad's gonna kick his butt." Her stride hesitated as she realized just how easily 'my dad' had flowed from her lips regarding Giles. And he was, at that — he'd adopted her, signed his name. Though legally her name remained Dawn Summers, the funny British librarian who blushed around her mother and cared for her sister was really and truly her dad. Maybe Dawn Giles didn't sound all that bad...

Okay, it did. It was going to take some getting used to.

Potter was going on about some scar and some graveyard and a cauldron, but Dawn had lost track in her musings. They were soon at a big room with four long tables and a short table at the front, which appeared to be open to the sky. "It's a charm," Potter explained. "It reflects the weather outside." Which was apparently a cloudless blue sky.

There was an empty chair between the Professor McGonagall lady and Giles, who was seated next to Dumbledore, so Dawn took it and let Potter find his own place. Giles turned from his conversation with the Headmaster to give Dawn a peck on the forehead. "It looks right to see you in the Hogwarts uniform," he said, reaching over to straighten her tie.

"I look like the girls at Sacred Heart," she grumbled, glaring when he laughed softly.

"You'll become used to it. The castle is quite draughty — by winter, you'll be glad to have the sweater and robe." He looked ready to pick up his conversation with Dumbledore again, but Dawn refused to be ignored.

"I thought you were hiding from these people," she snapped. "I thought you joined that Lord freak and killed people. Aren't they going to put you in prison?"

Giles seemed to deflate under her sharp tongue, sinking back into his chair, so that it was Dumbledore who answered. He leaned forward, impossibly blue eyes twinkling irritatingly. "Your father has been granted a full pardon for his crimes, as he is risking himself to recover Professor Snape. The Minister for Magic believes such a sacrifice to be enough penance... though I believe I may've had something to do with that. You see, the Minister owes me a year of favours."

She wasn't going to ask. "Yeah. K, whatever. Why are there beans on my plate?" They'd diverted her attention — all soppy and orange, in a little pile next to a waffley-looking thing, little dark patties of meat, and tomatoes. "This is one freaked out breakfast."

Giles snorted and went back to speaking to Dumbledore, while McGonagall took over for him. "It's a full Scottish breakfast," she explained. "Black pudding, bangers and mash -"

"Am I gonna wear the funky hat today?" Somehow, being rude to everyone possible made her feel impossibly better. McGonagall's lips thinned to a tight line as she pressed them together in dismay and Dawn held back a smirk — until Giles smacked her arm lightly and glared. "Fine," she muttered to him under her breath. "Pardon me, Professor McGonagall, but am I gonna wear the hat thingy?"

She caught Giles rolling his eyes, but McGonagall seemed to find it amusing. "The... er... hat thingy, as you so aptly refer, is the Sorting Hat. And if you'd like, we could Sort you after you receive your wand?"

"Sounds fine." Dawn was about to ask when that would be when the door of the big room swung open with a loud bang and an old man hobbled in, followed by three younger men carrying stacks of really skinny shoeboxes.

"Mr. Olivander!" Dumbledore called, rising from his seat. "Welcome! Thank you for coming so promptly — we have an emergency wand replacement!"

Giles was on his feet and tugging Dawn with him. "M-Mr. Olivander, sir... so good to see you again... my wand was -"

"Taken and snapped in half by a Death Eater, so Headmaster Dumbledore has informed me," the man said, finally reaching the table. Giles rounded the length of it, taking Dawn with him. She spent the time examining Olivander — he was old, older than anyone she'd seen before, and in amazingly good shape. "Cherry, augury feather core, 11 inches, quite firm. Good for Defense work, though I dare say it was used for the Dark Arts, as well."

At that, Giles blushed.

Olivander took no notice, as he took a box from the top of one of the piles the young man nearest him was holding. "My great-grandsons," Olivander explained. "William, Oliver, and Richard." He opened the shoe box to silence, taking out a wand which seemed identical to the one Dawn had found in the junk drawer. "Go on, give it a wave, Rupert."

Giles did so, and smiled as sparks of green, blue, and silver shot out of the ends. "It feels nice to be able to use it, again... how much? I'll have to transfer Galleons -"

"Consider it payment for services rendered," Dumbledore responded from behind the table. "And now, our newest student..."  
  
That seemed to be Dawn's cue. She stepped forward and waited for Olivander to give her a wand, but it seemed to be much more complicated than that. He asked a series of questions, measured her with a magical measuring tape that floated itself, and started grabbing boxes from the piles in his great-grandsons' arms. Cherry, oak, willow, and pine; dragon heart-string, unicorn hair, and phoenix feather — none of them did anything but damage as she waved them when directed. He went through a deep pile of wands before pulling out the next likely candidate. "Maple, 8 inches, a core of vampire dust. Stout and solid... quite good for transfiguration, I'd say." He eyed her carefully. "If this isn't the perfect wand for you, with your sister a slayer, I'll sell my shop."

That was a tall order indeed. But as she took the wand from him, she understood just why Giles handled his so carefully. It seemed to complete her; to extend her. Using Potter's felt forced, but magic flowed through her effortlessly as a puff of purple, green, and gold fireworks shot from the end. "Somebody dusted a vampire... and gave you the dust?" she asked quietly.

Olivander shook his head. "Not at all, Miss Giles. I dusted the vampire, nearly a hundred years ago. That wand is unique — it has no brother, as the vampire who supplied the core became only enough dust for one wand. Brother wands, you see... can create problems."

"Of course," Dawn murmured, though she hadn't a clue what he was talking about. She was too busy admiring the eight inches of maple fitting perfectly into her grip. So she was a witch, now — a witch with a magic wand, almost ready to join up with the secret world of wizards just like her. That didn't sound bad at all.


	7. Primal Force

Title: Counted as Clay Jars

Author: Indarae

Rating: PG-13

Pairings: Dawn/Harry... a little. Hints of Joyce/Giles in the past.

Summary: With Dawn's father absent after Buffy's death, care for the younger Summers falls to one Rupert Giles. However, even as life returns to normal, pieces of his past come back to threaten the future.

A/N: Whew. Crazy work week, almost over. I'm looking forward to getting back to school in the fall - it'll be exciting to be using my degree for something. I mean, what do you do with a BA in religious studies - other than grad school?

I'm glad so many of you have been enjoying this little foray into crossoverland.

Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

Chapter Seven — Primal Force

August 8

Potter charged off after finishing his food, so quickly that he jarred his hip against one of the long tables on the floor and cursed loudly enough that Professor McGonagall heard, and looked taken aback. "Is he always rude?" Dawn asked the woman, poking at the potatoey-waffle-thing, the only bit of the breakfast in front of her that seemed edible.

The professor gave her a close inspection. "He's a good boy, Miss Giles. It's been hard for him to adjust, I think."

"Adjust to what? He's an orphan, yeah, I got that. So what? My mom and my sister died this year and I had to leave my home without saying goodbye to anyone and I nearly got killed by a seriously evil wizard. I didn't know I was a witch until last month! I've got stuff to adjust to, and I'm not being rude. Well, too rude, anyway." Dawn shrugged, confused by the bafflement on McGonagall's face.

"You don't know who he is?" she asked.

"Well, he told me his name's Harry Potter, which I guess is kinda funny... I keep getting this mental image of a really hairy guy putting plants in a pot... but from the way you're looking at me, I'm guessing I should really know who he is?" Dawn blushed. "I mean, I'd never heard of Hogwarts until g-Dad gave me one of his books to read."

McGonagall set her fork aside, lips thinned in displeasure. "I'm quite surprised at Rupert. He should've told the story... You are aware that your father was once a follower of a Dark wizard, called L-lord Voldemort?" She stuttered over the name, blushing slightly. "Forgive me, it's difficult to say his name."

Dawn snorted. "What, Voldemort?" McGonagall let out a little gasp and Giles swivelled in his seat to look at Dawn in surprise. "Dude, what's the biggie? Potter runs around saying it. It's a stupid name — what idiot calls himself Voldemort?"

"Most witches and wizards do not speak his name," McGonagall said, face a pinched white, fear or something else. "Most of us call him 'You-Know-Who' as we fear speaking his name might bring him back."

"Bring him back? He, er... went away?"

"He was defeated, almost fifteen years ago, by a one-year-old child by the name of Harry Potter," Giles said quietly. "I'd fled before then... I was living in Bath with my father, training to be a Watcher when Quentin Travers promised to keep my secret. On Halloween..." He grabbed his left arm reflexively, where Dawn knew his icky tattoo was. "The Dark Mark burned for hours that night, as he called his followers together. And then, near midnight — there was a pain so sharp I fell to the ground, followed by nothing. When I looked, the mark had disappeared. I heard of the name of Harry Potter for weeks, as the Watchers tried desperately to learn why he lived when so many others died. There were no answers, so I thought I was free of him." He shook his head and sighed.

"His parents were key members of the fight against V- You-Know-Who," McGonagall continued, looking slightly defeated by her own inability to say the name. "James and Lily Potter, both students of mine. They'd gone into hiding — using the same spell as your father, actually — but were betrayed by their Secret Keeper. You-Know-Who appeared at their home. He killed James. He tried to kill Harry, but Lily sacrificed herself to give him more time. And then he attempted to finish the murder of Harry."

"Her love protected him, Minerva," Dumbledore said quietly, from beyond Giles. "Love — that primal force of which we have little understanding. A mother's love for her child is the strongest in the universe... The curse rebounded off of the protections given in Lily's sacrifice and hit Lord Voldemort instead, and he disappeared."

McGonagall scowled. "Not dead, though. Missing. He created a new body for himself just over a year ago, using Harry's blood, in part." Dawn tried not to wince as she saw her sister in her mind's eye — _She's made with my blood. She's my sister_. — and she watched again as Buffy hurled herself from a rickety tower to save Dawn's life — _The blood had to stop flowing_. Dawn looked down at her hands, where the blood of a Slayer flowed. Had she gained some protection for that sacrifice, the same way as Potter? "Mr. Potter was there when it happened," McGonagall was continuing. "He saw You-Know-Who rise, and saw a fellow student murdered. And I'm told he recently learned of the prophecy telling of the end."

"He must face Lord Voldemort. Harry, and none other," Dumbledore murmured.

Dawn glanced back and forth at the solemn expressions surrounding her and gave a shrug. He was a special kid — well, so was she. She was the Key. She knew what it was like to be different. And the best way to get past it... was to be treated normally. "Well, 'least it's not another apocalypse. Can I try on the funky hat now?"

------

Harry finished scribbling his letter to Ginny Weasley and attatched it to Hedwig's leg. "Hurry, Hedwig. It's a very important letter for Ginny."

Hedwig hooted and gave his finger a nip before setting off into the morning sun.

It was an important letter, indeed. Earlier in the year, he'd feared Voldemort possessing him, but Ginny had asked his symptoms and proclaimed that he wasn't being possessed at all. She should know, after all, since Voldemort had possessed her in the form of Tom Riddle in her first year at Hogwarts. She'd described memory lapses — of waking somewhere and not knowing how she'd got there.

The other night, he woke right where he was supposed to be, of course... but Miss Giles had claimed he'd grabbed her and said something. A memory lapse. He stood at the window and watched as Hedwig disappeared, query in claw, to find an answer. He didn't want to bother Dumbledore... but look what had happened last time? Rather than saving Sirius' life, Harry had been the indirect cause of his death.

He headed off to find Giles and ask more questions about the important things, like Slayers and demons and growing up knowing about vampires but not about the magical community as a whole. She wouldn't be a friend, he knew — but somehow, she seemed a kindred spirit. And Hermione had suggested befriending a few Slytherins...

------

It was a funky hat, alright. It was an animate object, hopping around on the Headmaster's desk when he pulled it down from a shelf, and its patched facade appeared like a face. Dawn didn't scream until its stitched-flap mouth opened to speak. "How now! Is it time for the students already, old man? I've another stanza to complete!"

Giles was holding down her shoulders to keep her from darting out of the chair, and whispering in her ear that everything would be alright. Dumbledore didn't seem the least bit surprised by the hat. "No need for the song yet, my friend. You have a month... I have a single Sorting today, an older girl who only recently discovered her heritage. You'll remember her father, Rupert Giles...?"

"Hmph. He was a bugger to sort. Yes, well... try me on, girl, don't dare be shy. I am the famous Sorting Hat — I never lie!" The hat hopped forward a bit, fabric face morphing into an expression of intense annoyance. "Bugger it all, that rhyme was terrible."

Dumbledore only chuckled and lifted the hat. Giles took a step back — Dawn reached out to grab his arm for support, but he was out of her grasp. And then, the nasty-looking hat was dropped on her hair from above and slipped to cover her eyes in blackness.

_Well, there. This is a surprise,_ the Hat said, its voice echoing through her head. _You're not a Giles at all._

"I am!" she snapped out loud, then covered her mouth and tried responding in her head instead. She didn't want Dumbledore and McGonagall to know all her secrets. _I am, too. He adopted me. He's my father now._

_You're just full of secrets... Oh, don't worry, I can sort you, alright. I can sort you easily. But I'll put you at ease, first: you fear you're nothing but a ball of energy? You are human, Dawn Marie Summers. You are every bit as human as that man you call father and the sister you mourn for. You work hard and stand bravely, you are quick to learn... any House would be proud to call you their own, but the House for you is the House of secrets. The House for you is the House you must redeem. _The hat seemed to chuckle. _Of course Harry Potter was right about where you'd belong... because he belongs there too, in the House of Salazaar..._ "SLYTHERIN!" The hat barked aloud, surprising Dawn into jerking from her chair with the volume of it.

Dumbledore plucked the hat from her head and set it aside smiling down at her. Many of the portraits around his office looked disgruntled, but for one shaking its hands in the air in victory. "Good, good... much what I'd expected, of course, but you'll need to remain in Gryffindor House until the school year starts, or we recover Professor Snape."

"She should be a fifth year," Giles insisted, his hand once again resting on her shoulder. "Can she be a fifth year?"

McGonagall was standing somewhere behind her — she was too busy noticing the newly green and silver stripes on her tie to say much of anything. "She has no magical experience, Rupert, do you really think she could take to the O.W.L.s this year, especially when worrying about you?"

Dumbledore's grin caught her attention again. "We will make a decision in three weeks, one week before the term begins. Mr. Potter is quite a good teacher, I learned this past term... and I have seen her perform a spell, which she did quite admirably, considering she was using Mr. Potter's own wand for it. I do think she will be ready in most subjects. The Malfoy boy may be required to tutor her in Potions once this term begins -"

"Malfoy?" Giles cut in. "Malfoy had a son? Is it safe -?"

"She will have to live in the same House as Draco Malfoy," McGonagall put in, gently. "The hat seems to think she will do quite well there. Mr. Malfoy will be a sixth year, so she won't see much of him. He will likely know that her father is a so-called traitor to the cause... but under Celeste's watch — or under Severus' watch, Gods willing — no one will harm her. Try trusting us for a change, Rupert."

"Trust is the only reason I'm leaving her here," he muttered, and his hand tightened on Dawn's shoulder. He leaned over, whispering into her ear. "Be careful, Dawnie. I'll be leaving soon, to help some old school mates of mine. Be careful, trust nothing a Malfoy says... and be careful of any student named Goyle, Crabbe, Nott, or Avery. Your sister would kill me if she thought I were leaving you in danger."

Dawn jumped out of her chair and threw her arms around her adoptive father. "Be careful, Dad," she whispered. "Be careful, or I'll find a way to curse you from here."

------

Dawn was munching away on a liquorice wand by the time Potter got back to the Gryffindor Common Room, having taken off her shoes and socks to paint her toenails Slytherin green with a spell Professor Sinistra taught her. "Took you long enough," she said, swinging her feet in the air as she lay on her stomach on the red carpeting, methodically going through a Charms spellbook to see how much she could do. "You send that letter off?"

"Yes," Potter said shortly. "And I've spent the afternoon with my guardian and my father's friend, and they think I've got the right of it, too." He slumped into an overstuffed chair, eyes taking in the Slytherin tie hanging loosely around her (top button open) Oxford shirt. "Slytherin, I see."

"Of course," Dawn replied as arrogantly as she could manage. She gave a searching glance over the top of her book. "And the Sorting Hat had a few choice things to say about where it wanted to sort YOU..."

At that, Potter turned a sickly green. "It didn't — I'll tear it to shreds — it told you! YOU of all people!" His hands balled into fists and he slammed them against the arms of the chair. "Don't you dare tell anyone that! Anyone, do you hear me!?"

Dawn snorted and flicked the next page open. What a nutcase — like she was going to bother with his dirty secrets. "Chill. I'll keep quiet if you'll quit screaming every five minutes. You're as bad as Buffy on PMS." She pointed her wand at the book in front of her and murmured, "_Mobililibrus_," grinning as it lifted off the floor and floated a few inches. "Cool. I've gotta memorize all the spells, but that's from third year, already."

"What year are you?" he asked, face twisted up as though physically pushing his angers away. "You don't look like a third year." That was approval, almost, and Dawn noticed his eyes roaming over her legs.

She fought down a chuckle and swung her legs around in the air again, just to see if — yup, he was tranfixed. All men were the same, just like Mom always told her. "Fifth, Dad says. That's how old I am, at least. They want you to help me catch up. Dumbledore said you were a good teacher, for some reason."

He puffed up a little. "I taught some of my classmates Defense Against the Dark Arts the last two terms, when the teacher was a batty old b -" he halted and gave a grimace, " -witch. And Neville owled and said he got an Excellent on his Ordinary Wizarding Level in the subject. Neville could barely remember the spells before the group started."

"Great, great. Sounds fine. I just don't know how much use a wand could be against a vampire, except as a stake." She let the book fall to the floor and flipped her wand in her hand, miming stabbing a vampire. "Wood. Nice grip. No vamp'd have a chance."

"You could freeze the vampire first, before it had a chance to attack anyone," he pointed out. "The spell for that is _petrificus totalis_. It wears off... but it would be plenty of time to let someone stake it. And _expelliarmus_ disarms your opponent — dead helpful, whether it's a wand or a dagger."

She nodded. "See, that's the stuff I need to know, considering where I grew up. You'll teach me — even though I'm a Slytherin?"

"Promise not to be friends with Malfoy, and I'll do anything," Potter said, grinning.

Dawn thought back to the man who tried to curse her — his silver-white hair streaming from around the sinister mask, his eyes glinting evilly through the eye holes. That was one promise she felt she could make. "If he's anything like his dad, you won't have any problems."

"Worse," Potter promised. "Draco Malfoy's worse." He took his wand from his back pocket and twirled it between his fingers. "Alright, then. Let's go find Tonks — she's my legal guardian — and see if she'll let us practice on her? She's an Auror, that's the magical police, and might have some suggestions to make..."

"Sure." Dawn bounded to her feet, pulling her socks on as she went. "I need all the practice I can get.

------

August 20

A good week and a half of her crash course in magic had gone by before anything else of note happened, and Tonks had assured her she'd easily finished third-year Charms, Transfiguration, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, not to mention the Herbology and Astronomy that Professor Sinistra was helping her through. Potions was sure to be a problem, as Tonks was a disaster and Sinistra had long forgotten which ingredient was which. Sunday found her dozing on the window seat in the Gryffindor Common Room after a grueling lesson in Stunning Charms with Potter and Tonks. Giles, who'd been in and out mysteriously for days, shook her awake gently. "Dawn, we've a trip to make."

"Mmm?" She rubbed sleep from her eyes. "Trip? Shopping?" She perked up, hoping those new robes might be in her future — she wanted some exactly like Madame Pomfrey's, with big angel sleeves, except in a dusky rose instead of red..

"No. The Headmaster has cleared us for a trip back to Sunnydale by floo powder, just for long enough to check in with everyone and to find anything we need. He mentioned there were police out looking for us in America. Remus Lupin heard about it through a contact of his."

That was enough to get Dawn out of bed. "Police? Didn't they get the letters we left for them?"

Giles grimaced. "I fear the Death Eaters may've searched the flat; found the notes... I hadn't brought it to your attention, as I wished to keep you from worrying, but now..." He gave a light shrug. "The closest floo hub to Sunnydale is in LAX."

"Wait. Los Angeles International Airport has a floo hub!?" Dawn's eyes narrowed. "I thought I couldn't do magic within a hundred miles of -"

"It's a very small hub," Giles hastened to say. "Only three fireplaces in commission. It's generally a stopover point between Honolulu and Seattle, Chicago, or Salem. New York's is quite large, too, but Salem has over a hundred fireplaces in constant use."

"So we're going from here, to Salem, to LAX?" she asked slowly, digging through her pile of clothes to find something clean and Muggle-ish.

Giles checked his watch. "We need to hurry, Nymphadora Tonks has gone ahead to procure a rental car under my name... we're going from the Headmaster's Office to the London Hub, through right to LAX. Waterloo East's the largest hub in the world. Wouldn't know it from the train station above." He scooped up her house robes from the floor. "Wear these. They give student discounts."

She stared longingly at her tshirt and shorts, but took the robes from Giles. "I'll meet you downstairs in five minutes."

"Less," Giles demanded, leaving the room. She changed and hurried to brush her teeth, grumbling under her breath. Yes, she was excited to have a trip home, to get those things she'd been forced to leave behind in their flight. She wasn't so excited to face Willow, Xander, and Spike. Spike in particular — if he hadn't found the note she'd left, would he think her dead? Would he be dead? It was no secret what Xander thought of him; and Spike made no attempt to hide the anguish he felt over losing both Joyce and Buffy. Would he have finally decided it was time to end his (un)life? Or did he even have the courage?

She didn't have enough friends from high school to bother calling them. A few might wonder: the school officials would certainly need a letter from Dumbledore explaining the school change. There were so many details that needed to be attended to before the school year could start — Dawn was finding a new appreciation for what Buffy had done in the wake of their mother's death. And then she was ready to go, and she couldn't put off her worries any longer. "See ya, Potter!" she called, giving a gloating smile to her sometimes-adversary as she passed him in the Common Room. He looked envious; he hadn't left the castle since she'd arrived and, from all accounts, his summer had sucked mightily before that.

Their travels were long and boring and, before much time had passed, she found herself wishing she'd brought a book. Giles and Mr. Lupin were chatting in the front seat of the car, and Tonks was trying to entertain Dawn by changing the size of her ears or the colour of her hair when she wasn't looking. Even that wasn't enough — there was a feeling of foreboding that only increased as they grew nearer Sunnydale. "We should go to the Magic Box. They should be at the store," Dawn spoke up when the rusting 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign came into view. Someone had hit the poor old thing again, and it was tilting wildly to the side, a beat-up tribute to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

"They'll have changed the locks on the townhouse," Giles said practically. "I expect Tara and Willow to have moved in by now; I only hope they've kept some of our personal belongings."

"They think you're dead," Tonks said, concentrating and making her hair a burnished auburn, in imitation of a woman they'd just passed on the side of the road. "People keep remembrances." Her hand strayed to a chain around her neck; presumably such a token.

"The time difference is significant, a full eight hours. Anya should still be at the Magic Box," Giles was saying as they rounded familiar corners. "She was often there long past midnight. Be careful of vampires, though; they'll bite anyone."

Lupin grinned. "I'll taste horrible."

Giles gave a snort back. "Yes, well, they've tried to nibble on Xander. Vampires here seem to have very little taste."

They parked and approached the lighted storefront as a group, wands clandestinely held in Tonks' and Lupin's hands. Dawn frantically reviewed the bits of spellwork Potter taught her, firmly intending to do Buffy proud if they met up with a vampy crowd. None of it was needed, though, and Dawn peeked through the Magic Box window to catch a few familiar faces seated around the table next to the cash register.

Before Giles could prevent her, she banged loudly on the glass and waved her arms in the air, trying to catch their attention. "Anya! Hey, Anya, Xander, we're out here! Hi, Tara!"

Tonks grabbed her shoulder. "Damnit, Dawn, there are other ways — we could be watched by Death Eaters -"

"In America, Tonks?" Lupin was saying. "There were no reports -"

"He wasn't interested in the colonies, not in the 70's," Giles added, "but I can say nothing of his ambitions today."

And then the door of the Magic Box was thrown open and Xander frantically pulled Dawn into the shop by the sleeve. "God — oh, God, Dawnie, we thought you were dead — who are these people, where's Willow? G-man, where's Wills?"

"Willow isn't with us. She was never... she's b-been gone? For how long?" Giles ushered Lupin and Tonks inside and shut the door. Anya was tugging on Xander's sleeve, Spike was hanging back with his gaze fixed firmly on Dawn, and Tara had broken out into tears; Dawn could barely listen to Giles and Xander as Tara's hugs were cutting off her hearing, circulation, and higher brain functions.

"Dawnie! Dawnie, we w-were s-s-so worried... you w-were gone, and your clothes were t-tossed all around your room, but Mr. Gordo was — was g-gone..." The other witch touched her cheek, her hair, her shoulder, as though assuring herself that Dawn was, in fact, solidly there. And then she looked more deeply and her stutter disappeared. "You've been using magic. Lots of magic... you're bathed in it; it's a glow on you." The glare fixed firmly on Giles. "You too. Magic. All of you... what's been happening to you?"

"It is too much to explain now! What's happened to Willow?" Giles grabbed Tara's shoulder. "The house; was it ransacked?"

"Where's Spike?" Dawn demanded. He was the only one not in the room, the only one who should be there, but wasn't. He vowed to protect her — only Giles had taken the job instead. No one answered; they were too busy paying attention to the panic flickering across Giles' face.

"It was a pigsty," Anya griped. "I had to clean the whole thing up and Xander wouldn't help. There were ripped up papers and books thrown all over the place -"

"Since the day you disappeared, G-man. She went over to your place; we just assumed she'd left with you... but she hasn't? Giles... man, Giles, we've got to find her... the police were looking..." Xander rubbed his eyes. "God, if I'd known..."

"What does Willow look like?" Tonks asked, poking around at a table of merchandise.

Xander shrugged, keeping one hand on Dawn's shoulder tightly. "Red hair. Green eyes. Shortish, skinny. She's my age..."

Lupin cut him off, peering at Tonks. "Harry's red-head? Could it be?"

"That's my guess. They found her instead of these two... Damn... I thought we only had to get Snape back." Tonks rubbed her face. "Rupert, I'll bet Harry didn't mention his dream to you..."

"He dreams of the Dark Lord. Headmaster Dumbledore told me," Giles murmured. When Xander and Anya exchanged confused glances, he shook his head. "Please don't ask me, Xander, I can't tell you all of it. Nymphadora, I'm assuming the dream you spoke of included Willow in captivity?" Giles winced. "Was she tor- hurt at all? Has he seen Severus again?"

Tonks glared as Giles used her first name, but answered anyway. "She was hurt, but You-Know-Who offered to help her. To teach her magic, I think Harry said. She accepted the offer. Snape was nowhere to be seen."

Tara seemed offended. "Willow wouldn't help a Dark Lord! Sh-she's good, and kind, and she helped B-buffy save the world!"

"She'd do anything to bring Buffy back," Anya inserted.

"But -" Xander cut himself off, shooting a glance at Dawn before starting again. "Buffy's dead. I thought magic couldn't bring people back from the dead."

Giles looked ready to answer, but it was Dawn who spoke. "Magic can do it, but it's Dark magic. And sometimes people come back wrong," she whispered, refusing to meet Giles' eyes.

"Voldemort wasn't dead, but he had no body, after Halloween of '81. He made himself a new body, he came back from the precipice of death," Lupin said. "Would this Willow try to use Voldemort's knowledge to fashion a new body?"

"She could use the robot body," Anya said. "All she would need was a way to attach the soul. And to find the soul."

"She can attatch the soul; she gave Angel back his," Xander reminded her.

They started arguing the logistics, but Dawn noticed Giles' absence from the conversation. She glanced up and found him looking at her. He leaned over to whisper. "You tried, didn't you."

Dawn nodded. "I tried to bring Mom back. But Buffy came and... I think the spell worked, but I think I brought back a zombie, and I- I destroyed — it, before it came to the door -" She stopped abruptly. "What if Willow brings Buffy back, and she's a zombie? I can't imagine — we couldn't have a zombie looking like the Slayer running around, but Giles, we couldn't kill Buffy, not even if it really wasn't Buffy anymore..."

"Nobody will try. I'm going to find Willow, and I'm going to stop her." Dawn realized that the whole of the store was listening to Giles talk, now. Giles, however, didn't seem to notice the overwhelming interest in his speech. "It will be ages before she could have the tools. Willow would need to become a Dark Witch to do that spell — she would call up magicks darker than she's touched before, even living on the Hellmouth. I know... I was there, I've seen the blackest of the Black..." He gently took Dawn's hand and rested it on his left forearm, where the Dark Mark was burned into his skin. "She would have to gather the blood of an innocent. She would have to come here, to Buffy's grave. She would need a certain clay vessel, the Urn of the Egyptian God of the underworld, Osiris -"

"Wait," said Anya, breaking into the speech. The others glared at her, Tonks seeming eager to hear the rest of Giles' story. Anya darted across the store, shoving Xander bodily out of her way, and returned with a clay jar decorated in Egyptian-looking hieroglyphs. "The Urn of Osiris. I got it on ebay."

For a long moment, Giles stood silent and still, hand clamped on Dawn's. Finally, he turned to glare at Anya. "Ebay? You bought the Urn of Osiris on EBAY! Did she ask you? Did WILLOW ask you?"

His eyes were blazing and Dawn, being taught by the best and brightest, could see the flare of a magical aura surrounding him — an angry red swirled with black. Lupin seemed to have caught it, too, as he drew his wand and pointed it not at Anya but at Giles. "Rupes, mate, put your wand down."

Dawn hadn't noticed him take it out; however, she knew just how to stop it. Snagging her own wand from her skirt waistband, she leveled it on her father. "Expelliarmus!" The magic, directed through the wand, felt dirty. Black. She shuddered under the power of it.

Giles jerked to the side violently, more so than he should've under the spell Dawn had cast at him. His wand zipped across the remaining space into Dawn's off hand, but he barely seemed to notice. The sparking of his aura was still there, though Lupin seemed confident enough to grab Giles' shoulder and shake him. "Rupert, she's an unarmed Muggle -"

He wasn't listening to Lupin. "Was she planning it, Anya?" His voice had gone a steely monotone, his rage far surpassed any Dawn had seen before, and his eyes — his eyes had the same hard, cold look as Lucius Malfoy's through the mask, when he'd tried to curse Dawn. He was Ripper, and Dawn saw what Slytherin might make of her. "Did she know what she was getting into, or did she think she was going to save the world?"

"I-I don't know!" Anya wailed, backing up into Xander, who'd moved to her side. "Giles, I promise, I didn't — I should've realized it, I know enough about artefacts, but this one — it's old, Giles, it's the only one left, and it's older than I am by thousands of years!"

Xander wrapped his arms around Anya protectively. "What if she got sent to Hell, like Angel? What if she's suffering, even now? We buried her body — but where's her soul?" Dawn let out a soft gasp. She'd never thought of that; she'd never considered her sister might be someplace bad. Someplace cold and scary and full of demons. Someplace like Sunnydale, but where good didn't win.

"SHE'S GONE!" Giles roared, anger filling the Magic Box. But then, without warning, he slumped to the side, stumbling against Lupin, who opened his arms to support the Watcher. "She's dead," he whispered, "and we can't bring her back without making a monster of her. She's with Joyce now."

Xander nudged Anya aside and advanced on Giles; Tara dashed forward to help Anya restrain him. Though halted, Xander barely seemed to notice. "Torment, G-man! We could be leaving her to be tortured for the rest of eternity!"

"Or she could be in paradise," Tonks said suddenly. "What makes you think she'd go to Hell? She was a Slayer, right? She was a hero. Heroes go to eternal paradise, not burning fires!" She paused, sharing a significant look with Lupin. "If heroes don't go to heaven, the rest of us are sure doomed."

Xander seemed to wilt, too, and Anya was there to catch him. "We never thought of that, did we?" Tara murmured. "All the thought and planning... we should've known better than that..."

"Watch her grave," Giles said hoarsely. His face was wet with tears; no one commented. "Watch, and protect that urn. Don't sell it, Anya, not for all the tea in China."

"I don't drink tea," Anya muttered, but Xander quieted her.

Dawn didn't realize she'd been crying, too, until Tonks wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Do you want to go home, Dawn?" Potter's guardian murmured.

For a moment, Dawn was disoriented. Wasn't she home? Here, in the Magic Box, where it always smelled like incense, and Buffy was training in the back room to the sound of the Indigo Girls? But it wasn't; not anymore. Home had become a cold, stone tower with red drapes and an annoying tower-mate. "Yeah," she croaked, wiping furiously at the tears. "I want to go home."

"I'll drive you back to LAX. Your dad can get anything you need," she said quietly, and led Dawn toward the door.

She didn't look back at Buffy's friends, not even to ask about Spike again. Instead, she turned back to Lupin and Giles. "Find Mr. Gordo?" she whispered. "I don't need anything else. I don't need to be here ever again."

And it was true. Because without Buffy... Sunnydale was nothing but a gaping hole.


	8. Fundamental Change

A/N: I'm happy so many people have been enjoying this fic! Don't worry - you'll find out about Snape and Willow eventually.

(Oh! And thanks to whomever pointed out my error last chapter - Spike was not in the Magic Box. I missed that in my editing. Eventually, I'll get back and fix it.)

Chapter Eight – Fundamental Change

August 21

Mr. Gordo was gone, but at least she had her diary and a stack of her Muggle clothing. It would be enough to get her through until her father had the chance to take her out for new wizard clothes after his mission was over. Dawn was curled up on the couch with Buffy's favourite stake clutched tightly in her hand like a comforting toy. Her History of Magic textbook was open in front of her, though her eyes weren't registering the words or pictures.

After a long while of staring blankly, she became aware of someone else in the Gryffindor Common Room – Harry Potter, standing off to the side next to the fireplace, looking hesitant to speak. She shoved the stake under her robes. "What do you want?"

He looked startled by her sudden speech, or at least he did from the corner of Dawn's eye. "How was home? Did you get to see your friends?"

"Woldiemart has Willow," Dawn whispered.

"What?" Potter dropped whatever he'd been carrying – books, from the sound of the stack hitting the floor – and crossed to kneel next to her. "Voldemort has... one of your friends?" He looked guilty. "Did she- red hair, short, strong personality -"

"Willow," Dawn whispered and nodded. "Dad warned me about magic on the Hellmouth. He warned me it would turn me Dark, and I didn't listen, I just went and played with it and learned how to levitate things. But he was right, wasn't he... and now Willow's gone off and she's learning Dark Magic from Lord Thingy-whatever."

Potter moved to a sitting position and sighed. "I should've said something. Maybe you'd have known ages earlier... but I've seen her, dozens of times. She hasn't taken the Dark Mark, but she's at his side. When I dream about him... he doesn't look scary and snake-like anymore. He's taken on a glamour."

"I've read about those," Dawn murmured. "He's covering up his true form, is that it?"

"He looks as he did when he was a student," Potter explained. "Just older. Not inhuman."

"Willow would know better than to learn from someone who looked like a monster..." Dawn paused. "At least, I think she would. The mayor turned into a giant snake and they knew better than to listen to him. But she's trusting. She always has been. And if the Hellmouth magics messed with her... God only knows what she'll end up doing." She gave a sigh and buried her face in her hands.

Harry patted her shoulder hesitantly. "Er. I don't... have a sister or a dad or... well, anyone. But... I know some people who've gone Dark, and most of them come back."

Dawn scowled. "Somehow, that isn't helpful."

"Right." Harry backed up. "Look. I'll go... get something. Yeah."

"Something. Right." Dawn gave a snort and opened her History of Magic text back up, ignoring Harry as he retreated. What a pain it all was – Goblins rebelling right and left, British monarchs who wanted to try their hand at ruling the mystical world, wars about religion dividing wizards right and left. No wonder Volde-whozit was having such an easy time of it. Factions had been building for thousands of years, here!

It didn't help that the professor kept calling her "Dorothy Gills" who, according to Professor Dumbledore, had been a student there when Professor Binns died and left his body to keep teaching. Dorothy Gills, however, had been a Hufflepuff and without trying, she'd managed to have five points subtracted from the other House because she threw a pencil through the ghost to see if it would make it. Not that she really cared, anyway – she wondered what the Hufflepuffs would think when they got to Hogwarts in seven days to find themselves five points in the hole.

History of Magic was her final catch-up class, beyond Potions. Apparently a substitute for that had been found, and the witch (or wizard; Dawn didn't actually know which) would be arriving in a few days, whereupon she'd begin her lessons. She'd be ages behind the others, then, but Potter claimed she'd still be ahead of Neville Longbottom, who was in his year. And now, with Willow in the hands of Volder-warts himself, studying was even harder.

"What witch enjoyed the Inquisition? What? Why would someone enjoy the Inquisition?" Dawn scowled down at the sheet in front of her.

"The answer to that question would be Wendelin the Weird," came a voice from over her shoulder. "I do believe she enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be captured no fewer than fourty times."

Dawn spun about in her chair and launched herself to her feet. "Dad!" she squealed, the name no longer seeming out of place in the midst of things. No one else was in the Common Room; she could've just as easily called him 'Giles' without ill affect. "You're here! You're alive! Are – are you okay?" She backed up, noting dark smudges under his eyes and several scratches on his face. "What happened to you? You didn't come right back after visiting home! Did Lord Whats-his-thingy hurt you?"

He let out a low chuckle. "I'm alright, Dawn, really. I had to sneak back into the school by way of a... more roundabout method. Tripped on some roots on the way in. If one of His spies caught sight of me here, all the work I've done thus far would be ruined... not to mention the fact that Severus would likely be executed before dawn."

"Severus? Is that the Snape guy's first name? Weird."

Another laugh. "Weirder than Rupert? I'd doubt that highly."

"At least you're not named Dawn. I think Mom must've been tripping when she thought up my name." She made a face, then winced when she realized what she'd dragged up. "Sometimes – sometimes I forget she's not still here, you know?"

"It's clichÈ... but she'll always be _here_," Giles murmured, patting his chest above his heart. "I'm sorry I got you into all this, Dawn. You should be in Sunnydale, readying yourself for the school year, not here learning everything you've missed."

Dawn shrugged. "I don't mind it. It's... it's better, not being there, where everything reminds me of them. This is me. This is something they never did. Something they won't get the chance to experience, but something that's all mine. When I'm walking down the hall here, I'm not constantly being reminded that Mom and Buffy are gone." She walked over to close up her textbook and shut her bottle of ink. "It's not so bad. After all, I've got Potter to torture. At home, I was the only one my age."

"Write them," Dad suggested. "Use one of the school owls, or borrow Professor Dumbledore's phoenix. I'm sure Fawkes would be delighted to make a short trip to Sunnydale. It's much faster for him, you know..." He trailed off. "I'm sorry. I'm babbling, trying to draw this out... I have to go undercover for a length of time. I may come to visit here at the school, to speak to Dumbledore, but I'll be disguised. I won't be able to talk to you."

"Do you really have to hide?" The thought of being alone – truly alone, for the first time in as long as she could remember – was beyond disturbing. It was heartrending and gutwrenching.

Somehow, he seemed to know just what she was thinking. "Lucius knows the truth. I tried to fight him. However, you won't be alone..." Dad cut himself off again, reaching over to straighten Dawn's tie and smooth down her hair. "You don't need my suggestions. You'll find Slytherin quite to your liking, I assume."

"Yeah, Slytherin, great," Dawn said offhandedly, hurrying on to her next question. "Are you gonna find Willow? Are you gonna send her here, so Dumbledore can help her?"

Dad winced. He took a seat on the crimson sofa and drew Dawn over to sit next to him. "Willow is ... my objective isn't to find Willow. I'm to find Severus and find a way to free him without getting myself killed in the process... and Willow wasn't a part of the plan. From what Remus and Moody have been able to piece together -"

"Moody?" Dawn asked shortly.

He shook his head. "Old Auror. He's not fond of me – he's very much of the opinion that every Death Eater should serve time in prison, even those of us who simply made a bad choice and repented – but I've learned to work with him. Anyway, from what Remus and Moody can tell, she's been treated as a queen. Like the Dark Lord's right hand, likely to Lucius' chagrin, or perhaps a mistress... heaven knows, we hope the disgusting creature can't reproduce..."

"But what about Tara?" she burst in. "Willow loves Tara! She wouldn't hurt T ara for anything!"

"Dark magic changes people," Dad whispered. He was rubbing the spot over his Dark Mark again, as though it pained him somehow to speak ill of the Dark Lord, even in such a roundabout fashion. "If she's gone too deep, her morals have been corrupted as well. One cannot touch evil without being fundamentally changed." The glance he gave her was sobering; full of regret and anguish, sorrow and guilt. "The things I did... I never gave it a second thought, at the time. The thrill of the power, of using that much magic in any way I saw fit – so long as the Dark Lord agreed with me, of course – it was such a rush... liberating, after growing up in a conservative household among servants of the Light. I was young, brash. I was Ripper. It was a persona I crafted very carefully over my years in Slytherin. That personality, that... that ME is still somewhere at my core. However, due to the crimes I committed, the me inside was altered to someone more thoughtful, more somber, and – hopefully – someone more accepting of difference. I have not yet begun to repay my debt for the things I did, when I was someone else."

Dawn stared at the backs of her hands. "That's just a long way of saying that Willow's gone all bitch queen and won't be coming back, right? That she's as dead as Buffy?"

He paused, mouth hanging over, seemingly at a loss as to an answer... but then he simply nodded. "Should she pose a threat to the removal of Severus from the location, there is nothing I can do but... remove the threat."

"But if she's not a threat? If you get Snape out... will someone try to bring her home?" Dawn closed her eyes. "Willow and Xander are the only connections I have left to Buffy."

"She was preparing a Dark spell to bring Buffy back; a spell which probably would've backfired," Dad reminded her.

Dawn shrugged. "Yeah, maybe she was. She's family, though. We don't let family get brainwashed, do we?"

"It's too late to stop the brainwashing. It's already happened." He shook his head, reaching over to brush her hair out of her face. "I don't want to lose her either, Dawn, but she's not Willow anymore. Not our Willow, at least, as far as Remus' contacts can tell. It's better to say goodbye now, before she puts you in danger."

"When are you leaving?" Dawn asked abruptly. She stared down to the textbook in her hands, avoiding Dad's gaze.

"Now," he said simply. "I've granted custody to Remus, should anything happen. Hopefully, this will all be finished by Christmas."

It seemed an age away. "Christmas," she repeated. The joy of that season seemed an odd companion to her despair and fear, at the moment. And then, Dad's words hit home. "Wait – you granted custody to Lupin? What does that mean?"

"It's just a preventative measure," he muttered, and snagged his glasses off his face to clean them on the edge of his robe. "Just – in case I should be k-killed in all this – I wouldn't want the American authorites to have their way, and naming a guardian -"

Dawn shook her head, abrupty cutting him off. "You don't think you're going to come back, do you. This is – you're saying goodbye like you're never going to see me again. Like Buffy, on the platform. She told me..." She trailed off, mind reflecting the words. _The hardest thing in this world is to live in it._ "I've only just gotten used to things being the way they are, and now you want to leave me too?"

Maybe she sounded bitter, maybe angry. Her heart felt too dead to identify her tone. Dad looked guilty. "I don't want to leave, Dawn, but it's... it's my redemption. When I was no older than Buffy, I chose to do terrible things. I hated. I tortured. I pillaged. I – I murdered noncombatants. I was a horrible, vile person. By all rights, my last twenty years should've been spent in Azkaban Prison. I'd done enough... my sentence likely would've been the Dementor's Kiss, which is far worse than execution. For near twenty years, I managed to escape my past... but now, I have to pay, one way or another, for the sins I committed."

"Why is Dumbledore sending you on a suicide mission after a grouchy old teacher?" she whispered. Her voice didn't seem to want to obey her commands and her face was wet.

There was more guilt. "Because..." He lowered his voice to a murmur. "I think Severus is his son, as you are my daughter. There is no tie of blood, but Albus is responsible for Severus' actions, in a way... and Albus is very deeply pained by Severus' loss." He sighed, carefully brushing a lock of hair from Dawn's forehead. Though anger drove her to pull back, some deeper need for human touch sent her leaning in to the touch. For all she knew, it could be the last time they spent in each other's company. "You will not believe this now. Later, perhaps... But I'm not just doing this as a favour to Albus or to pay back my debts. I'm doing this to make this place a safe world for you to live in. Sunnydale was not. With V-V-Voldemort on the loose, nowhere can be safe. Though Harry Potter must destroy him, I can do my best to weaken him. Though I may not see the end of my action, I will die knowing I did it to make your life safe."

"I don't like Potter. He's stuck up and sarcastic and – Let's run away, let's go to Canada, like we were planning," Dawn begged.

But he shook his head. "I have to go, Dawn. This is my gift. I cannot tell you of my mission, beyong the objective to rescue Severus... Mind Remus and Tonks, don't fight with Harry too often, and be wary of Malfoys bringing gifts. Do well in your classes... you will have such a future, Dawn. Make the most of it."

She was pleading for him to stay, crying and holding the edge of his robe. But after a hug and a kiss to her forehead, he pried himself away and was gone; and she was left crumpled on a couch in the Gryffindor Common Room. She saw Potter peeking in, watching her, but her grief at losing another parent was too much to bear. She wept.

------

He wasn't sure if Giles knew he'd been sitting on the dormitory steps for the past half hour, holding the Chocolate Frog he'd been bringing down for her, but he felt unable to move. She wasn't a friend. Far from it, actually – come the first of September, she'd be the enemy. Well, partially the enemy. She was a Slytherin, but her father was furthering the cause of the Light. Should he die...

Should Rupert Giles die, Dawn would come under the protection of Remus Lupin. The thought gave Harry pause. He'd been under the impression that being a werewolf made Lupin unfit to be a guardian; otherwise, why wouldn't _he_ be Lupin's ward, rather than Tonks'? Tonks wasn't bad, after all, but she wasn't old enough to really be a mother... though Sirius, as Dumbledore had commented, had been more a brother than a father to him...

If having Lupin for a guardian wouldn't mean the death of her father, Harry thought he might envy Dawn Giles. Surely being a werewolf wouldn't be too much of a problem, especially with Giles being old enough to care for herself when the moon was full. Lupin was easily the smartest person Harry knew, with Hermione as a close second. And though he felt guilty to think it, Rupert Giles dying in the attempt likely meant Snape wouldn't be returning from Voldemort's clutches either.

There was a side of the man Harry refused to see, and that was the side that created a monster of his father and Sirius. Harry would never be able to forgive him for giving him doubts... and with Sirius dead, the doubts were still there. Why had his mother married his father, when Snape's memory showed how much she loathed him? Why was she so sympathetic to Snape, of all people? And why, when he needed one the most, did Harry find himself devoid of a mother?

Giles had lost her mother, her sister, and her father had just left on a suicide mission. Perhaps her grief really was as great as his own. And though they weren't friends, and he was at a loss when girls started crying around him... maybe he needed a bit of a cry, as well.

Just not where Ron could learn of it.

He eased himself up off the stairs and tiptoed down into the Common Room, trying not to disturb Giles too much. Her sobs seemed to have tapered off, a bit. Rather than wracking her whole frame, delicate and tiny compared to his Quidditch-toned body, an intermittant sniff filled the air. "Giles?" he whispered. It came out more a squeak, and he cleared his throat softly. She hadn't turned her head. "Er – Dawn?"

That finally caught her attention, and she turned to him, wiping her red eyes with the heel of her hand. "What do you want? I thought you'd run off -"

"I want to help," he said, cutting her off before she managed to say something to anger him. She was just so irritating – it was hard to keep from flying off the handle around her. "My godfather – you knew that, already, of course, but he – it hurts, doesn't it? And just when you need them most, they've already gone and left."

"Yeah," she whispered. She pulled her knees to her chest and started rocking against the back of the couch slowly. "But he's not dead, not yet. And I don't know if I'll ever know for sure that he's gone. With my sister... she jumped, right into this portal, and there was all this blue energy. I could see her h-hurting."

The sobs started again, and Harry found himself compelled to hug her. He wasn't a physical person – the only touches in the youth he could remember were a very few painfully administered by Uncle Vernon as a punishment or Dudley because he was nearby. However, holding Giles like that seemed something Mrs. Weasley would do, or something his own mother would've done, had she been there when he cried. "She fell?" he murmured back, barely making noise. "Sirius fell – he fell, and then he was gone, no body."

"Sh-she fell, and she was hurting. And then she just went- went st-stiff, and still. And she fell. Her b-body hit the ground, and even up on the building like I was, I could hear the thud, and I knew she was dead, and – and – I should've jumped, Harry, it should've been me!"

I shouldn't have asked Cedric to take the cup with me; I should've died. It should've been me. His own mantra was eerily familiar. "She died so you could live," he said simply. That hadn't been true with Cedric; however, maybe he should take a bit of his own advice. Voldemort's order had killed the Hufflepuff. Harry had not. Maybe it was time to accept that. "It shouldn't have been you. You're here now. You've got magic to learn. You've a world of good to do, that only you can do."

"But I can't do it alone..." She trailed off, fingers intertwined with the crisp white collar of Harry's school uniform shirt, and red-rimmed eyes fixed out the window. "I want my mom."

It would've been so easy to say something to hurt her. She was vulnerable, and somehow that was endearing. "I want my mum, too. But she died to save me, and so – I've got to do what I think she'd have wanted." And, suddenly, that made their situations all the more similar. They both had legacies to live up to; hers of her sister, his of two who fought Voldemort to the very end. Harry gave a long sigh, shaking his head. "This would've been much easier, had you been a Gryffindor."

"Maybe," she said shortly, pulling away. "And maybe it would've been easier had you been what you were supposed to be; a Slytherin."

He could feel another argument coming on. His anger was rising, and of late it was a force to be reckoned. However, before she could retreat completely, he wound his fingers around her upper arms to keep her in place. "Don't do this. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up the House thing. This is all hard to come to terms with – by all means, I'm supposed to be your enemy."

"I'm meant to redeem my House," she said. "I think I'm meant to show them what Dark Magic can do. I don't know if I can, though... I'm just a Muggle-raised girl in a place where everyone else has known magic for ages. I don't know people, I don't know the ettiquette, I don't know who's on top of the pile -"

"You'll learn," Harry said, finally. He pulled her back into another hug. "You'll do it for your dad, if for nothing else. You'll make him proud."

The abrupt change of topic sent her into another emotional down. "He won't live to see it."

There was a long silence, until Harry ran a hand through her hair and gave a sad smile. "There's still a chance, however small it might be."

"Harry, I lost my mom and my sister within a few months of each other. My sister..." she choked on the words, and merely shook her head to give herself a moment to compose herself. "I don't want to be alone. Mom and Buffy and Dad... and Dad..." Harry wasn't sure why she was repeating herself, but she took a deep breath and continued, "Now Willow might be evil, and she's been like another sister since we moved to Sunnydale. I can't go back there for long, it'll mess with my magic, so I won't see Xander or Anya or Tara... or Spike... Spike loved my sister, and she's dead, and I'm not there to keep him from doing anything stupid. I didn't even get to say good-bye to him, and... I'm gonna lose Dad, too, and I'll be all alone in this world, and I don't know anything about it, and I'm so scared -" She choked again and, this time, stopped talking.

Harry sighed and cradled her against his shoulder. "You won't be alone. You're going to find friends in Slytherin, I'm sure. It will be difficult, I'm afraid – but they'll be your House, your family. That's the way it's always been."

"What if I don't want them for friends?" she whispered. Her voice grew louder, muffled by Harry's shoulder. "I want to make Dad proud, but what if I don't want everybody to hate me because I'm with evil people? Maybe – maybe I'm cunning and whatever, but I'm not evil! Soon, you won't ever talk to me again, and -"

Without putting much thought into his actions, Harry pushed Dawn back, so that he could look into her face. "I will talk to you. I promise you."

"I'm sorry, Potter, but I just can't believe you. You're afraid of being friends with a Slytherin. Do you think I'm really evil, deep down, even though _you're_ supposed to be a Slytherin, too? Do you think I'd forget the way you treated me when you found out I'd been Sorted there? I'm not quite so naÔve as you'd expect, Harry Potter – my sister was the Slayer. I've fought things you'd never imagine -"

He told himself later that he did it to stop her from talking, before she managed to get him truly angry. At the time, however, anger was far from his thoughts. In the middle of her sentence, he dragged her closer and sealed his lips on hers.

It was much nicer than when he'd kissed Cho. First of all, it was less wet – though Dawn had been crying, something was different about it. Secondly, it was soft. Her lips were covered in some glossy girly something, and it was fruity smelling. She was soft, too – her hair cascaded over his hands, and he released her sholders, only to caress down her back to hold her waist instead. Unlike the kiss with Cho, he didn't want this to stop.

His hands on her waist, he tugged her forward, and the length of her body leaned against him, curves and all. This was most definitely not something that was intended for the Common Room but he found that for once he didn't really care what other people thought. Slytherin or no, he realized she'd been right about everything.

After a long moment – but not long enough, to his mind – she pulled away, and he whimpered from the loss of her lips. "We shouldn't, not here, not now." She stepped back, and Harry let his hands fall to his hips.

"Why not now?" Harry sighed and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I'm sorry. If you didn't want me to kiss you, I mean. I'll just – go now."

Harry took a step back, but Dawn shook her head. She reached up slowly and touched her lips. "That's not what I meant, Harry. I just... that was my first kiss. It was very nice, don't get me wrong. I'm just not ready to do any more than that. I've lost my mom, and my sister, and my dad..."

"It's okay," Harry said. He held out his hand. When she took it, he led her over to the couch in front of the fireplace. She curled up at his side, leaning into him as though her form was meant to be there. "We can just sit. Maybe we can watch the sunset."

"I'd like that," Dawn said. Harry wiped her tears away with the sleeve of his shirt and, together, they stared into the fire.

------

Rupert Giles tightened the knot keeping his cloak steady. Many years had gone by since he'd worn such a cloak – long and black, with a deep hood. The mask was familiar, too, in its own sinister way.

At his elbow, Kingsley Shacklebolt frowned, though his face resembled that of Homer Hammerstein, a Death Eater now languishing in the Order's care. "I have a bad feeling about this, mate."

"Did you take Divination?" Rupert asked. He appeared to be Iscariot Lestrange, definitely the more dangerous guise of the two. Bellatrix, Iscariot's insane wife, would likely spot the difference in an instant.

"Not likely," Kingsley snorted. "It's a load of twat."

He smirked. "Then, as I highly doubt you're a seer, perhaps you're simply a bit nervous?"

"Let's just go," Kingsley muttered. "We've 53 minutes before the next dose is due."

"Indeed," Rupert said, and they Apparated to the location Iscariot had provided.

It was a dank mansion, one that had been used for meetings even in Rupert's time. It took only a moment for him to remember the layout of the surroundings. There would be a throne chamber up ahead, where the Dark Lord would likely lounge. They'd have to avoid that. The door to the right of that would lead down to the old dungeons while affording a quick peek into the sitting room of the Dark Lord's private chambers through a chink in the wall. Rupert gave a polite nod to a cloaked but unmasked Death Eater whom he didn't recognize and made a beeline for the door, closing the two of them into the antechamber.

Kingsley was at his elbow as they slipped into the room. "Rupes – that was -"

Rupert clamped a hand over the Auror's mouth and shook his head frantically. He pointed to the peephole, tiny and largely hidden by a tapestry. "Voldemort's room," he mouthed and let Kingsley peek first.

The Auror took a long moment before letting Rupert lean in. He almost blew their cover with a shout – in the center of the room, holding a familiar urn, was Willow. The lights were dimmed, and he could only pick out the bare outlines of three more shapes. "Tom, are you sure it was her father's body? The wrong bone would give us the wrong resurrection," she said.

Out of the shadows stepped a man Rupert didn't recognize – dark hair, radiant green eyes, in his late thirties. The vibe of evil gave away what memory couldn't. It was unmistakably the Dark Lord. "I promise you, my dear. He was killed earlier this summer, by the hand of one of my associates... he'd been digging into things that didn't concern him. That is a bone of Hank Summers."

Willow smiled broadly, the sort of innocent smile she'd worn in the time before Jenny's death. "Excellent. Only three ingredients short. I'm worried we'll run out of time."

"Never, luv. I promise, your friend will be back by tomorrow. She'll be glad to join us." The Dark Lord knelt down – Rupert had never seen the man kneel for anyone – and kissed Willow's cheek. "Never fear, luv. Never fear."

Rupert stepped back, in shock. Somehow, rescuing poor Severus seemed a great deal less important.


	9. Turbulance

A/N: I love my reviewers! Yes, you. All of you!

I'm in a particularly happy mood, having shuttled the kids to tennis practice and played in the sunshine. Yay. And now, fic.

Chapter Nine - Turbulence

Dawn turned down the covers and slipped into bed. She'd left Harry standing at the point where the staircases parted, smiling as she turned away. He was sweet. Sweeter than any of her sister's boyfriends, that was for certain. He wasn't a vampire, which was better than Angel, though he seemed to have the brooding down. He seemed sincere, which made him tons better than Parker. And he wasn't a demonic killer, which made him better than... whatever Spike had been to Buffy. Although the whole "hunted by the Dark Lord" bit was going to be a little hard to deal with...

A sudden tapping snapped her out of her doze. At first, she didn't know what it was. The room around her was completely dark, so she snagged her wand from under her pillow. "_Lumos_." Was the tower room considered a residence? If it was, she'd be just fine – vampires would need an invite. But it was a school, and vampires had certainly attacked the high school without a second thought...

The tapping sounded a second time, and Dawn managed to zero in on its location: the window nearest her bed. Her glowing wand held in front of her, both a beacon and a defense, she tiptoed over and poked the window open.

She screamed as a dark shadow fluttered into the room, headed straight for her. What was the right incantation to stop it? She tried to remember, batting helplessly at the talons grabbing at her arm. Talons? And then it settled down on her bed.

It was an owl. "Owl post," she muttered, mentally kicking her stupidity. She hoped Harry hadn't heard her.

The owl was sticking out its leg, looking annoyed at her greeting. Hesitantly, she stepped forward. "Er – sorry about that, I thought you were a... vampire..." The owl hooted softly, and Dawn carefully took the envelope from its talons. "Um... thank you..." Without another sound, the owl launched itself out the window.

Just as she was about to open the letter, a call came from the stairwell. "Dawn? Dawn, are you alright?"

She dashed over and opened the door. "Er – yes, fine."

"What happened?" Harry called. "I'd just gotten back to sleep after -" He cut himself off, sharply. "Well, what happened?"

"It was... an owl," Dawn sighed, trying to control her blushing. "Just an owl."

Dawn couldn't see Harry, but from the tone of his voice, he was amused. "Pesky buggers, aren't they."

"It's not funny," she snapped. "It was dark, and I've never gotten owl post before."

"Come on down here, I'll sit with you while you open it." He tapped on the wall.

She glanced down at the envelope pensively. She didn't recognize the scrawled handwriting. 'Giles, Hogwarts,' was all it said. "Why don't you come up here?" she countered. She didn't really want to go running around in her nightgown, when all was said and done... though Dad would have a fit if he thought she was having boys into her room in the middle of the night.

"Can't. Boys aren't allowed into the girls' tower. An alarm goes off." He sounded sheepish. Dawn longed to ask him how he'd learned that... but decided not knowing was probably better.

"Fine. Hold on a sec." She dashed over and pulled on her Slytherin robes, more for warmth than modesty. The towers were wicked cold, even in the summer.

When she got down to the common room, Harry was waiting for her in oversized flannel pjs. "What've you got? A letter?"

They took a seat on the couch. "Yeah." She handed it to him unopened. "I don't recognize the writing."

"It's neat. I bet it's a girl's." Harry shrugged and gave it back.

Dawn was too curious to talk about it anymore. She tore the top off and pulled out a simple piece of notebook paper. As soon as she'd unfolded it, she winced. "It's not for me," she said. "It's for Dad."

Harry frowned and looked over her shoulder. "Well, it was addressed to you... you're the Giles who goes to Hogwarts..."

"Anya. Anya sent it." Her name was on the back, signed in a hasty scrawl. "We can't send it to Dad, he's undercover."

"Well, read it. If it's news from home, you should know about it, too." Harry shrugged and leaned back, giving her room.

After only a brief hesitation, Dawn turned the letter back over and started reading.

Giles –

We've got a big problem. Two men in masks and black dresses just broke into the Magic Box while Xander and I were cleaning up. They pointed their sticks at us and said something in Latin, and I've never been good at Latin, so I don't know what it was, but then I couldn't move, and neither could Xander.

They took the Urn of Osiris, and one of the Restricted spellbooks, and an orb of Thesula, the one you were using as a paperweight. The spell only just wore off, and I know you told me to use owl post if I had to speak with you, but I just don't think this stupid owl is going to cross the Atlantic in time to tell you what happened. And Spike's run off somewhere, he's been gone for like a week. Xander says good riddance.

Xander just reminded me. I didn't tell you which spellbook. It was the Grimoire Arcanorum, the one with the Egyptian supplement. They're going to bring back Buffy.

Next time you come back to visit, could you bring me one of those little globes with the snow in them, with Big Ben in the middle? Xander said it was a bad time to ask, but I figured you should have your eye out, just in case you're in London to rescue Willow. Tara says hi.

Love, Anya

------

Shacklebolt grabbed Giles' shoulder and yanked him back from the peephole. "We have to go," he hissed. "Thirty-two minutes."

Rupert wanted to pull away. He wanted to charge into the Dark Lord's private rooms and sacrifice his life to shatter the last Urn of Osiris – anything to keep Willow from destroying his daughter, his Slayer, with the terrible spell. She could be readying the last ingredients even as they wasted time rescuing a tainted man from his doom.

But then he remembered his duty. This was his penance for the terrible things he'd done in his youthful ignorance and stupidity. He followed Kingsley down the stairs.

"What did that mean?" Kingsley murmured, when they were far enough away that the sound wouldn't register in the Dark Lord's chambers.

"She's trying to resurrect my daughter," he said simply.

The Auror narrowed his Death Eater-shaped eyes. "Isn't your daughter at Hogwarts? And why would You Know Who want to -"

"My other daughter," Rupert said. "My Slayer."

Shaklebolt's eyes widened. "A Slayer? That girl is going to resurrect a Slayer for You Know Who? Would... would a zombie have that sort of strength? Slayers are magically enhanced, right?"

"Yes, yes, I don't know, and yes. Kingsley, we have a job. I'll come back afterward..." Rupert heard a clink somewhere in front of them, and held up a hand to silence his Auror partner.

Simultaneously, they pulled out their wands and crept forward. Rupert hit the corner first, but Kingsley was the one to peek around the corner. He caught Rupert's attention, and held up a finger, then mimed casting a spell. Without waiting for the rest of Kingsley's instructions, Rupert ducked around the corner and hissed, "_Petrificus totalis_." The guard, a thick-set man Rupert didn't know, slumped to the ground.

"I was going to be the point man," Shaklebolt muttered, dashing over to grab the ring of keys from the guard's belt.

"Yes, well, my daughter's peace is in danger," Rupert countered. "You were acting too slowly. Where's the cell?"

Kingsley tossed the keys to Rupert. "I think that's it." He gestured to a door, then leaned down to hook his hands under the frozen man's armpits.

Rupert unlocked the door and let it swing inward. It was a dungeon cell, transfigured from a cellar room – he should know, as he'd been there to see the Dark Lord's work. "Severus?"

There, curled in the corner and cringing away from the light, was the once-proud Potions Master of Hogwarts. He could smell the poor man from across the room. "Move the guard in here," Rupert ordered, hurrying to check Snape for injuries. Luckily, there seemed to be only exhaustion. "Severus, can you move?"

"I didn't do it," Snape hissed, his voice raw. "I didn't trade information. Tell the Dark Lord. Tell him I didn't."

Rupert sighed – there was the other, rather large hole in the plan. They looked like Death Eaters. As there wasn't time to explain, Rupert simply plucked a hair from Severus' head and dropped it into the vial he pulled from his pocket. "Here, Kingsley, have the guard drink this." As Kingsley handled the guard, Rupert forced another vial down Snape's throat. "You won't believe us, but we're here to help. At the next Order meeting, we're talking about a recognition word, Severus."

After only a moment, the polyjuice took effect. Severus appeared to be the third Death Eater from Iscariot's squad, while the guard appeared to be Severus. Rupert let Kingsley help the spy to his feet, then made sure to close the door and lock it once they were out. There were other keys on the ring, other prisoners of the Dark Lord who should be saved – but there wasn't the time for it. He hung the keys on a peg on the wall, as though the guard had gotten lazy and left them there. "Twenty-six minutes," he muttered, checking his watch.

Severus, in his new Death Eater guise, pulled away from Kingsley. "If you take me to my doom, I will walk. If you are truthful, my walking will make the subterfuge easier. And... thank you."

"Don't thank us yet," Kinglsey murmured. He took point, up the stairs. As they passed into the atrium, the Dark Lord's voice could be heard, echoing through the hall. Rupert wanted to stay, to hear if the talk was about his Slayer, but Kingsley shook his head.

His duty wasn't done. They Apparated out.

------

It took until they'd reached the safety of the Hogwarts grounds for the Polyjuice to melt away from the Auror and Rupert. Snape, still looking like Forrest Flint, recognized Kingsley immediately. "I thought it was another of their games. They made me think that – that Minerva sneaked in as a cat, under the cover of dark... and that Potter showed up to defeat the Dark Lord... but every time, just as I tried to Apparate, it turned out that I was still in my cell and it was all in my mind."

"You're out. We promise." Rupert pulled Severus' arm across his shoulders, helping the injured man to stay upright.

Severus peered at him more closely. "I know you... you're not an Auror, though. I haven't seen you in..."

"I am like yourself," Rupert whispered. "One who returned to the Light. I, however, was not so fortunate as to find a way to stay in the magical world while the Dark Lord slept."

His eyes narrowed. "Ripper. If you're around, then Ethan must be -"

"Must be elsewhere," Rupert snapped. "I go by Giles, now. I have high stakes in choosing the correct side, now. I have to protect my children."

Severus met his eyes, and suddenly a torrent of images swept across Rupert's mind. Severus Snape, legilimens extraordinare, was reading him. "Daughters," he said reverently. "You have two daughters."

Rupert tore his gaze away, and Snape took the hint – he stopped reading. Rupert would've have been angry for the violation, but for the simple fact that he needed Severus' trust. Mind reading was the simplest way. "We need to get to Dumbledore. There are other things he has to know, yes?"

"The Dark Lord has a new tool," Severus whispered. "I've seen her. A redhead, from America." He frowned darkly. "She was in your mind, too. She is dangerous..."

Giles sighed. "She grew up on a Hellmouth. She started trying to learn magic... I tried to steer her toward other pursuits, but to no avail. And now..."

"She's trying to create a weapon. She's resurrecting a warrior, who will be under the Dark Lord's control. She's resurrecting..." He stopped and peered closely at Rupert. "She's bringing back your daughter. Oh, Ripper, I'm sorry -"

"Stop," Rupert growled. "They're doing it tonight. I don't have time for sorries, I have to go back and stop Willow before she creates a monster from the pieces of my child. I have to get you to Dumbledore, and then I have to -"

"I know what he's doing, and how she's doing it," Severus said suddenly. "He's going to use your daughter to bring the agents of evil to his side. Demons, vampires... they'll stay in line, because of your daughter. She has power over them. And the spell, it uses the blood of an innocent. If this witch, this Willow, manages to even begin the spell, it may be too late to bring her back to us."

Rupert winced. "Then I'll kill her."

"Can you?" Snape asked. He drew himself up, despite his weakened body, and grabbed Rupert's shoulders. "I've seen in your mind. Can you kill one whom you see as your own kin?"

"I'll have to," Rupert whispered. "There's no other choice."

Snape peered at him closely, then nodded. "We're stopping here, Kingsley. I have to tell Ripper what he needs to do."

------

Dawn set down the letter. "Oh, God. Willow."

"I don't understand. What's going on?" Harry took the letter off of her lap and read over it. "Urn?"

"The Urn of Osiris. It's a component of a spell... a resurrection spell." Dawn curled onto her side and Harry stroked her hair. She had a terrible vision of the night she tried to resurrect her mother, and made a zombie instead – except this time, the zombie would have her sister's face. "The Orb... that has the power to bring back a soul. Willow's done it before."

Harry nodded silently and read over the note again. "I know where Voldemort is," he finally said.

That was enough to bring Dawn back into a sitting position. She grabbed Harry's flannel shirt, forcing him to meet her eyes. "How? How do you know that?" she demanded.

"I – I had a vision last night, and he was looking at a map with the red-headed woman and Bellatrix Lestrange. They're planning something, for the future, something big... but I know where they are, now." Harry tried to shrink back, but Dawn held him firmly in place. "I should've told Dumbledore, I know, but I'm not supposed to be able to see anymore -"

Dawn shook her head frantically, cutting him off. "You know for a reason, don't you see that? You had that vision so we can rescue Willow before she makes my sister a zombie!"

"No – no, we can't go, not without help!" All the blood rushed from Harry's face, leaving him pale and frightened. "The last time – the last time I went off without telling someone, Sirius died. I tried to rescue him, but it was a trap..."

"Harry... it's just us. We can slip in and get her out before sunrise!" Dawn let go of her fistfuls of fabric and settled her cheek against his shoulder instead. "We have to, Harry... I can't just abandon Willow."

Harry winced. "What if she doesn't want to come with us? What if... In my vision, Dawn, she and Voldemort seemed to be getting along pretty well. Very well. What if she turns us over instead?"

"What if it were somebody you knew?" Dawn asked. "What if it were one of Ron's brothers? One of those funny ones you're always talking about? She's been brainwashed, and I can't leave her there!"

"I just..." Harry trailed off, glancing away from her. His face was a portrait of conflicted emotions, twisted in pain. Dawn tried to ignore it. "Fine," he said quietly. "You're right. If it were Fred or George, I wouldn't stop to think about it. We'll go... but we're taking the right tools, and we're leaving a note."

Dawn smiled sadly and hugged Harry. "Thank you," she whispered. She didn't notice the uneasiness locked on his face.

------

"Make sure Severus gets to the Infirmary. Get plenty of backup before you come after me," Rupert said. He was adjusting his Death Eater cloak and readying himself for a return visit.

Snape, finally wearing his own face again, looked about ready to pass out. Kingsley shook his head and placed a hand on Rupert's shoulder, restraining him. "Wait for me, Giles. I know this is about your daughter, but going in alone is suicidal..."

"...And so is waiting. Every second I put this off... I don't know what this will do to her. Willow's powerful, incredibly so... but bringing back the dead? Buffy could be a zombie, her soul intact but unable to control the movements of her body... or she could come back in one piece, but be placed under the Dark Lord's control by Imperius... she could come back without her memory and fight willingingly on his side, and I don't think I'd be able to kill my Slayer. My duty is to protect her, to nurture her..." Rupert trailed off, looking away. There was no way that Kingsley, childless, single, and not a Watcher, could truly understand.

He looked about ready to protest, but Severus summoned enough energy to tug the Auror's sleeve. "Let him go," he hissed. "This is his family."

Kingsley was distracted, just long enough for Rupert to pull back and make a run for the Hogwarts entrance. Giles heard Kingsley shout the beginning of the Impediment Curse, but it was cut off by a scuffle. He didn't wait to see what had happened. As soon as he reached the edge of the grounds, he Apparated away.

------

Somehow, the plan sounded better in the warmth and coziness of the Gryffindor Common Room than on a cold moor near Hadrian's Wall. The manor rose up above them on a damp field of brambles and heather. Just inside the gate, hidden from the main view by low shrubbery, the Invisibility Cloak-clad pair of Harry Potter and Dawn Giles dismounted from the former's broom.

"We leave it in the shrub nearest the door," he hissed.

Dawn nodded and held the cloak steady. They crept along the very edge of the walkway, careful to step aside when various figures in black robes passed them by. Harry held the broom hooked under one arm. Both students had their wands firmly in hand.

The manor, Harry guessed, was probably owned by the Malfoys. Immaculately pruned hedges often formed giant "M"s, and he was exceptionally careful to keep from stepping into unidentifiable foliage. For a long moment, he wished that Neville was there to help – when it came to strange, dangerous plants, no one had more knowledge. Somehow, Harry doubted the Malfoys would make gardening choices simply for beauty.

They must've avoided the dangerous flora somehow, as a looming double door stood before them. Harry tucked his broom behind a long topiary planter. This was the next obstacle, then – how to get in?

"Someone will have to come by," Dawn whispered. "We can get in with -"

Harry slapped a hand over her mouth as he heard the first creak. Somehow, the plan actually seemed to be working. They edged back in unison to make room for whomever was coming out – however, though both doors swung inward, only two men stood there.

The first was Lucius Malfoy, unmasked. He looked much the same as the last time Harry had seen him in the halls of the Ministry of Magic, except for a scraggly scar running down the length of his cheek. He turned out to the gardens, and Harry felt a chill up his spine: somehow his eyes burned in madness. "I know it," Malfoy said.

"I see nothing," the other man said. Harry's stomach, already churning in fear and nervousness, dropped right to his feet as he got a closer look. He was young looking, with dark hair and clear green eyes. Harry could've been looking into a magic mirror and seeing himself at thirty – fourteen years older, and as many years Darker. He'd seen the face from within. Tom Riddle surveyed the grounds. "I suppose I'll have to take your word for it, Lucius. I'll send out a party."

"Let me lead it, my Lord. These are my grounds, I know their dangers best." Lucius bowed deeply.

Harry had seen enough. He slipped his arm around Dawn's shoulders and pulled her, as silently as possible, past the pair just inside the house. As they passed Voldemort, he could've sworn the man's icy green eyes settled for just a brief moment on their hidden forms. And then, it was over. They were past the first hurdle, and inside.

The layout of the manor was cemented in Harry's memories of the visions. He took Dawn's hand and led her straight into Voldemort's throne room, a large plush chamber that might once have held the Malfoy library, and stopped beside a doorway leading off from it. The throne room was empty, and soft noises were coming from the adjacent room. Finally, Harry felt safe enough to make a noise. "Malfoy and Voldemort," he whispered.

"I'd know Malfoy anywhere," Dawn replied, equally quiet. "Let's get Willow."

"No. We have to find out what's going on," he said, as firmly as he could muster.

Dawn looked ready to protest, but fell silent as footsteps rung in the foyer. Voldemort entered the chamber, then, and crossed to the very room Dawn and Harry were waiting outside. Harry threw his arms around Dawn to move her aside – they barely made it out of the Dark Lord's way as he swept past. Once again, Harry had the eerie sensation of being seen... but that was impossible. The cloak was firmly in place.

The door creaked partially shut. Harry knelt down, and Dawn balanced against his back – in that position, they could both duck around the corner see into the room. Voldemort was in the process of hanging up his black outer robe – underneath was a plain, if a bit old-fashioned, well-tailored suit. "Willow, luv, Lucius tells me we have a visitor."

Dawn tensed as the red-headed woman from Harry's vision came into view – or, he assumed it was the same woman. Their faces were the same, but beyond that, she bore little resemblance to the crumpled, weeping figure whose torture he – no, Voldemort, he'd been in Voldemort's mind – had stopped. Instead, her hair was streaked with black, as though a dye job had gone horribly wrong. She was clothed in a fine, high necked robe that reminded Harry of a Dickens adaptation he'd caught on BBC2 by peeking over Aunt Petunia's shoulder. She looked strangely comfortable as she passed by Voldemort, gave him a fond pat on the arm, and took a seat on a plush chaise lounge, smiling all the way. "I'm sure Lucius will take care of it. Doesn't he always?"

"Indeed." Voldemort sat across from her, in an equally plush chair. "He's a brute, now. He was much more elegant in his form, before Azkaban. What a pity for us all, to have lost such a fine mind to that end."

"Oh? Is he to be the flesh, then?" Willow reached over and pulled a thick book from a stack that sat on a table nearby. She flipped through it eagerly. "Willingly given, it says."

Voldemort shrugged. His smile was chilling, but Willow returned it with a beam of delight. "Although Lucius would likely give to me whatever I asked of him, including his firstborn son, he's lost enough in my service already. No... I have a servant who would willingly give a chunk of flesh to remain in my good graces. The last time I did this, I was gifted with a hand. Perhaps... I should ask Severus for his nose. Or maybe his foot – he's hideous enough that one might not notice the absence of a part of his face..."

She leaned forward over the book. He reached out and stroked her hair – Dawn shivered, and Harry took her hand in the only comfort he could give. He couldn't imagine the agony the sight must bring her. "Now, that's not nice, Tom. He's not the most handsome of men, yes... Though maybe we need someone more handsome to make sure Buffy's body is brought back in the same form as it left? She was lovely, you know – thin and blonde, very petite..."

"Never as lovely as you, my dear," Voldemort smiled. Willow blushed. Harry held back a gag of revulsion. "But, that's not the way the spell works. It's the willingness to give the flesh, I believe. None would be more willing than Severus, as he'd lose his toes to save his own life."

"I'm still worried about the bone of the father," Willow sighed. "I can't be sure it's Hank Summers', even with the license found in his pocket. Buffy's father is nothing if not sneaky... he managed to slip out of every promise he made to her. And to Dawn."

Harry stiffened and pulled his fingers from Dawn's grasp. If it wasn't for their need for total silence, he'd turn and demand to know the truth. She lied to him? Mr. Giles wasn't her father?

For one terrible second, a single thought hung in his mind: what other secrets could she be keeping?

And then, Willow was talking again. "Then all we need is the blood of a foe... and for the resurrection, the blood of an innocent." Harry snapped back to his focus, trying to ignore the frantic tapping on his shoulder.

"Oh, I've taken care of the blood," Voldemort said. "I've found her most dangerous foe, the one who could tear her apart from within, according to your stories... and I've found perfectly innocent blood."

Dawn was tapping again. Harry looked up into her frightened face – her eyes were fixed at a point behind his back. He shifted, only to find the one person he hated as much as Voldemort standing with her wand trained on the both of them.

Bellatrix Lestrange.


	10. Innocent Blood

A/N: Parts of this chapter are adapted from Ch 32 of GoF.

Chapter Ten: Innocent Blood

The dark woman took a step forward and called out. "My Lord, you have company."

"Indeed," Voldemort said. Dawn grabbed Harry's shoulder to pull him to his feet, hoping to make a run for it. She glanced over in the Dark Lord's direction, only to find both Voldemort and Willow staring at them. The cloak was useless. "Bellatrix, I doubt they'll be needing that anymore."

The woman, Bellatrix, grabbed the edge of the Invisibility Cloak and yanked it off the pair. Harry, who had been kneeling on the end of it, lost his balance – as the cloak was pulled away, Harry tumbled to the side and took Dawn with him. She lost her grip on her wand as she fell onto her backside, and it rolled out of reach.

"Hello, children," Voldemort said pleasantly. "I'm so glad you could be joining us."

Harry scrambled for his wand, but Bellatrix was faster. She kicked it into the corner of the room and pulled Harry to his feet by his shoulders, a vicious grin on her face. "Potter, how long has it been? Only a summer? I wonder how my dear cousin is enjoying his new living arrangements? Or... perhaps living isn't the right word..."

"I'll kill you," Harry hissed. "One day, when you're not watching, I'll be waiting there, and I'll kill you."

"Well, maybe he's not as far from the Dark Side as you thought, Master Yoda," Willow joked. Voldemort looked vaguely irritated – he obviously hadn't a clue what the Muggleborn witch was talking about – but the remark made Harry appear more offended. Willow then stooped to put a hand on Dawn's shoulders. An electric jolt of filth rolled down Dawn's spine. The other witch's eyes were ringed in an ominous black. "Hello, Dawnie. Are you here to help me rescue Buffy?"

Dawn shot to her feet and stepped back. Bellatrix, Harry in hand, blocked her escape, but anything was better than Willow's dark taint touching her. "Leave Buffy alone!" she begged. "She's dead. She's gone. Let her rest, where she doesn't have to fight anymore!"

"But she's still needed," Willow said. She cocked her head to the side. "Don't you see, Dawnie? There are monsters left to fight – monsters like Dumbledore, who wants to keep magic confined to those he feels are good enough for him to teach. Or monsters like the Minister of Magic, who passes laws to prevent witches like us from helping the rest of the world to prosper through magic. They're the real monsters, you know, the ones who keep what we know from benefiting the normal people. The muggles."

"That's not true," Harry shouted. "Dumbledore isn't like that, he's -" Bellatrix cut him off by clamping a hand over his mouth. Dawn caught the movement out of the corner of her eye and inched to the side – Bellatrix followed.

Dawn shook her head. "Harry's right. Maybe the Minister's a monster, I don't know. He's done some stupid things. But the Minister hasn't had people murdered, so far as I know! He isn't talking about getting one of his lackeys to cut off his foot, or his nose, or whatever!"

Voldemort gave a loud snort, and started to say something, but Willow cut him off. "Dawnie, sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. There's a Hellmouth in Dublin, you know. A Slayer is needed to protect it, and all we have is a newbie, whomever Faith's death Called... All I need is a little help, kiddo." Rather than irritated, Voldemort looked proud. Willow had picked up whatever he'd been feeding her, to the letter.

"She'll be a zombie," Dawn argued, falling back on whatever words she had left. Unfortunately, Voldemort seemed to have done an impeccable job of brainwashing Willow – the problems she was bringing up with the magical world were real problems, things Dawn had wondered too. She never thought she'd be getting answers from the devil. "A zombie Slayer is no good to anyone. She'd be slow... dangerous... she could get herself Turned, and then we'd have a Slayer who was actually a vampire, and what a mess that would -"

"She won't be a zombie," Voldemort said, coming to stand beside Willow. "Don't you trust your friend, here? She's an incredibly powerful witch."

Dawn bit back a sob. "She's tainted! Can't you feel it? Anything she creates will be Dark!" But why would such a thing matter to the Dark Lord himself?

"Magic isn't evil, Dawn. It's a tool. I'm going to use it to help Buffy... and thus, I'm doing something good. You're going to help me, whether you consent or not." Willow peered at her. "You're not Buffy's enemy, right? You're the innocent blood?"

She froze. In her mind's eye, she again relived the moment on the tower, as the Doc slashed her midsection, as the first drops of her blood sent a shockwave through the air – as her sister dove into the fissure and her life closed it. Dawn turned and tried to make a break for it. Her blood was powerful, and terrible enough to bring hell on earth.

But escape wasn't to be – other Death Eaters were filing into the room, and one masked man grabbed her and dragged her forward. "Thank you, Iscariot," Voldemort said. "She's a key component of this whole process..." He chuckled softly and turned to Willow. "The key component. And here I go, making puns again."

Willow let out a giggle. "Clever... but where's the enemy, Tom? Whose blood will craft her body?"

"I'm so glad you asked." Voldemort offered his arm, and Willow took it. Dawn shuddered as the man, Iscariot, dragged her aside. She noticed Bellatrix doing the same thing, parting with Harry to make a corridor through the small throng of Death Eaters – perhaps ten of them.

Dawn wondered, for an impatient moment, who it would be. One of Glory's minions? Some demon that had gotten away? Hadn't Buffy taken care of most of her loose ends?

She couldn't suppress her agonized wail, and her struggle to escape Iscariot's grasp, as Spike was led through the mass by two masked men. His hands were chained, as were his feet, and one of the Death Eaters led him by a chained cuff around his neck. He looked like hell – his pronounced cheekbones were even more apparent, and his eyes were sunken in, as though he hadn't fed in weeks. Their eyes met, for a brief moment, and in them Dawn was unable to find even the merest trace of hope. Spike opened his mouth to speak, but the leading Death Eater tugged on the chain and cut him off.

Willow turned to look at Voldemort. "What a fine surprise... but there's only one problem. Spike isn't her enemy. Spike's in love with her."

"He's a vampire," Voldemort said. "He has no soul, not like you and I. He has no capacity for love. What he has is an obsession. Were that ingenious Muggle device to be removed from his brain, he would revert to the hunter he truly is. The Slayer would once more become his prey, as she always has been. In this form, the pitiful vampire who thinks he loves the Slayer, this enemy can do the most damage. He can destroy her from within."

Willow cocked her head to the side, again, and examined Spike closely. He stared at his feet blankly. "You're right," she said, setting her hand on Voldemort's arm. "Of course you're right. His blood, what's left of it, should do just the trick."

Voldemort smiled. "Then let's begin, luv. One retainer should stay... you, Flint. Iscariot, Bellatrix, I'd like to to remain as well. The rest of you, patrol the perimeter, and have Lucius bring Severus up... We're expecting more company, and I won't like it if we're disturbed."

The Death Eaters filed out, and the last one shut the door. And so they were left, two students and one weakened vampire against three minions, a Dark Lord, and a Dark Witch. Dawn wasn't fond of the odds. Harry had been right – running in half-cocked couldn't have been a worse idea.

"Well, then," Voldemort said. "Shall we begin?"

------

Dawn's arms were bound in front of her, and Bellatrix Lestrange was making very sure that she wasn't moving. Iscariot had become Harry's guard – and Harry wasn't quite sure what to make of the whole situation. He'd been bound but, beyond being stashed on the sideline under Iscariot's cold gaze, Voldemort seemed to be taking no notice of his young nemesis.

Instead, it put Harry in the perfect place to watch the unfolding events. As he sat uncomfortably, the Dark Witch drew a pentacle circumscribed by a circle on the marble floor of the throne room. She set her tools around her – a gleaming white bone, a jar, and a long, jagged dagger. Into the circle, she directed the remaining retainer to bring a long, topless box, which was filled with liquid of some sort.

As it sloshed against the sides of the box, Harry was hit with a memory – the graveyard, where Cedric died. _He was tied to a headstone, and Wormtail brought forward a cauldron full of liquid. In it was placed the terrible, child-like form of the Dark Lord_. Willow held a hand out over the container. "Heat." Within a moment, the surface of the liquid sparked with energy.

Harry thought he knew what should come next – in the graveyard, it had been Voldemort's hairless body. This time, however, Willow stepped out of the circle and lifted a small, glowing ball from a case on the table. "It's her soul, Dawnie," Willow said. She smiled over at Voldemort, fauning. "Tom did the stinky herbs."

"Go on, pet, we've a deadline to make," Voldemort said. He'd taken up a position on his throne, his black robe pooling to the floor.

Without another word, Willow crossed back into the circle and released the glowing orb into the box. Rather than sinking straight to the bottom, it was suspended halfway, ignoring all laws of physics. "I'm ready. Where's the servant?"

"Lucius?" Voldemort called. "It's time! Bring him in!"

Harry glanced back, wanting desperately to see what had happened to the Potions professor – however, as the door opened, only Lucius Malfoy was there. "Snape is gone," Malfoy reported. He crossed the room at a dash and threw himself at Voldemort's feet. "Someone Polyjuiced the guard into Severus' shape. He's been gone at least an hour."

"You have failed me," Voldemort hissed. Harry thought he could see around the Dark Lord's glamour – his face took on a vaguely snakelike quality and his eyes were tinged with red. "I asked you to keep a prisoner secure! Just a simple request!"

"I will recapture him, my Lord. Let me do something – anything – to prove myself!" Malfoy grovelled.

Voldemort glanced over at Willow, and the witch shrugged. "He's as good as any," she said.

"Then prove your loyalty, Lucius. Step into the circle. Take the chain and lead the vampire." Voldemort leaned back, and the serpentine qualities were gone. "Do whatever she asks. Her orders are mine, tonight."

Malfoy rose to his feet, then bowed deeply. Without so much as a sound, he picked up the chain attatched to the cuff around the pale blonde man's neck and dragged him into the circle. The man – vampire, Harry supposed – gave no resistance. Dawn let out a whimper, and Bellatrix jerked her bonds until she was quiet.

Willow smiled, then, and lifted the bone from the ground. She extended her other hand over the long box. In Harry's mind, Wormtail chanted most of the words along with her. "_Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your daughter!_" She dropped the bone into the container, and the surface of the water spat sparks.

Grabbing the dagger, Willow rose and pulled Lucius next to the low box. He held out his hand, and she set the edge of the knife against his little finger. Harry squeezed his eyes shut and turned away, already knowing what was to come. "_Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will serve your master's bidding_." Malfoy let out a cry, which was followed by a sickening plop.

When Harry opened his eyes, Lucius Malfoy had his right hand wrapped in his cloak. He'd backed to the edge of the circle, and was grimacing in pain. The potion in the container was a harsh, burning red.

Then, she forced the vampire to his knees beside the box. She grabbed the manacles binding his wrists and extended both his arms over the container. "_Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe_." Harry winced as Willow sliced down the side of the vampire's right arm. Though red began to flow, the vampire didn't seem to feel the pain at all. He stared forward, dazed.

The moment the first drop of blood fell into the box, the liquid became a blinding white. The vampire collapsed to the side, and Willow stepped back, covering her eyes. Harry immediately closed his, but the radiance of the magic was so blindingly bright that the light seemed to burn through his eyelids.

Finally, it tapered off. Harry peered into the steam, expecting to see a terrible figure standing before them, waiting to be robed. After all, that was what had happened to Voldemort. Instead, as the smoke cleared, he saw the still, nude form of a woman lying in the box.

He finally realized what the box reminded him of. It was a coffin. The body inside was perfectly formed, not like the horrible, misshappen shell that Voldemort had taken on, but was just a body. Lifeless. Dead.

Maybe, it had gone wrong.

------

Dawn tried not to cry, but the tears were flowing down her cheeks anyway. Laid out, as she had been only a few short months earlier, was Buffy's body. In one, small part of her brain, she wondered whether the tears were of joy – after all, the thing Dawn wanted most was to have her sister back. But no, not like this.

Willow shoved Malfoy out of the circle, and the retainer, Flint, dragged Spike out and left him lying just outside of the circle's edge. Spike wasn't moving – but that wasn't surprising, since he didn't breathe. He wasn't dust, though, so that meant he was still alive. She was afraid to ask what happened next.

Dawn didn't have long to wait, though. Willow left the circle and grabbed Dawn by the bound wrists, pulling her to her feet. "Your turn, Dawnie."

She heard Harry yelling something, behind her, but her world became the black orbs that were Willow's eyes.

"Come, now. I'm only taking blood." Dawn fell to her knees beside the coffin. Willow was busy. She set up a black candle at each point of the pentacle, then lit each one. Finally, the urn in one hand and the jagged dagger in the other, she sat beside Dawn. "Hold still. It'll only hurt for a minute."

It was just as painful, just as terrible as the moment on the tower. Dawn's blood dripped into the urn from her wrist, and Willow, eager to be finished, left it bleeding as she sat back. "_Osiris! God of the Underworld, I beseech you! Give us back the warrior of the people! Let her cross over!_"

The chant continued. Dawn was only half aware of it, as she tried to cradle her arm to her body. Her blood was dripping, a torrent, staining the marble floor. A shadow loomed over her, and Dawn looked up to see Willow. The witch poured the contents of the urn slowly over Buffy's body. "_Let her cross over!_" A swirl of colour rolled over the body, starting from her toes. A stream slipped up her nose and between her lips, another rustled through her hair. A terrible crackling filled the room, the sound of electricity at enormous levels.

And then Dawn noticed. Buffy's chest was moving.

Her eyes flickered open.

All hell broke loose.


	11. The Blood is the Life

Chapter Eleven: The Blood is the Life

While the room crackled with electricity, Harry finally noticed that Iscariot was no longer watching him. Instead, the Death Eater was staring at the Dark Witch and the body in the center of the room, his face set in something akin to horror. Harry didn't take the time to wonder why – he worked his hands out of the loose ropes that bound his wrists and made a dash for the door.

That was enough to catch Iscariot's attention. The Death Eater lunged, taking Harry out at the knees. Harry fell, crying out as his head hit the floor with an audible crack.

Iscariot Lestrange flipped Harry's body over, and Harry caught a glimpse of Bellatrix Lestrange and Voldemort hovering over him, though the room lurched sickeningly. "The boy has become a liability," Voldemort said. "I should've taken care of him already, but he's proved himself to be immune to the Killing Curse once..."

"Let me do it, my Lord," Iscariot said, from around Harry's feet. The man stood and dragged Harry to his feet – Harry gagged, trying desperately not to vomit as the room spun. He'd hit his head harder than he thought. "I'll do it without magic."

Voldemort nodded. "On with it. Bellatrix, my new Slayer needs a robe."

Bellatrix bowed deeply and left the room. As the door closed, Voldemort turned back to watch the preceedings. Harry had a single glance of Dawn weeping next to the coffin before Iscariot shoved him up against the wall and held out a knife.

"Don't forget to scream," Iscariot said, the knife hovering above Harry's throat. And then, Iscariot grinned and winked. Harry heard Dawn's cry, and the blade hit his skin.

-----

When the first spurt of red hit the wall, Dawn screamed with all the breath left in her body. She stumbled toward the edge of the circle, still cradling her arm, but Willow's grip stopped her. Past the hem of Willow's robe, Dawn watched Iscariot back away from Harry.

Harry had his hand to his throat. He tumbled forward, onto his face, as red stained the floor. Dawn turned away.

"Well, I'm sure the Ministry didn't see that one coming," Voldemort said, a vicious smile on his face. "And I thought he was the one who was supposed to murder me."

"Simple solutions are the best," Willow agreed. Her hands, locked around Dawn's shoulders, were stained red. "Tom, would you help Buffy up? Give her your robe until Bellatrix is back? She looks cold."

Voldemort stripped off his top layer wordlessly and knelt next to the coffin. Dawn finally looked at Buffy – she was blinking widely, arms crossed over her chest. Though Dawn hadn't noticed at first, it seemed as though the liquid from the spell had evaporated. "What's going on?" Buffy asked. Her voice cracked, and she sat up, curling around herself to protect her modesty.

The Dark Lord draped his robe over her shoulders and pulled it closed in the front, in a remarkably gentle motion. "You're alive," he said. "Willow has been working for months to save you."

"It's cold here. So cold..." Buffy blinked, and looked around. "Did I win?"

"You won," Willow said. "See? You saved Dawnie." She dragged Dawn forward. Dawn, unable to stop herself, burst into another round of tears.

Voldemort helped Buffy to her feet, and helped her pull the robe on. Buffy's eyes were fixed firmly on Dawn – she stumbled out of the coffin and fell to her knees beside Dawn, dragging the girl into her arms. Dawn found she was unable to speak – the horrors she'd survived were too terrible for words, and Harry's body still lay behind her. "You're bleeding," Buffy said. She looked at Dawn's hands more closely. "You're tied up. Willow -"

"She was afraid we were going to hurt you, that you'd come back wrong, but you're alright! See, Dawnie, Buffy's alive. She's alright." Willow untied the ropes – her eyes were green, again, Dawn noticed. Her hair, however, was stained entirely black. The combination made her look eerily like Voldemort.

Dawn threw her arms around Buffy and held her, listening to her heart beating.

She had only that moment – Voldemort stepped across the empty coffin and pulled Buffy to her feet. As Buffy was led away, Dawn thought she saw a glint of silver at Voldemort's waist "Come, Slayer. The world needs you. Your time isn't over."

"My Lord!" came Flint's cry, from behind the group. Dawn had forgotten about him entirely. As she turned, another sound filled the air.

"_Avada Kedavra!_" A green light shot through the air, and hit Flint in the chest. Flint crumpled.

Iscariot had his wand pointed at the group. "Let her go. Let my daughter go." And then the edges of Iscariot's hair started to change color. The shape of his face wavered until, only a moment later, it was Rupert Giles standing there, in a Death Eater cloak. "Let my Slayer go, or I'll kill the witch."

His wand was trained on Willow.

------

The hum of Dark Magic flowing through his veins was a rush, a high. He hadn't felt so good since he left the Dark Lord's service, afraid of what it was doing to his soul. Giles tried to shake it off – tried to tell himself that killing Flint had been necessary – but he wondered if he'd ever get the stain off of his conscience.

In a shuffle, the scene changed: Voldemort pulled Buffy back against him, a glint of silver flashing in his hand. "I will kill your Slayer," the Dark Lord said. "A trade. Your Slayer for my witch." He appeared to be wandless – not weaponless, though. At Buffy's throat was a knife.

Buffy didn't seem to be afraid, only confused.

"Stop it!" Dawn screamed. She reached for Voldemort's robe, tucked around Buffy, but the Dark Lord dragged the Slayer out of her sister's reach. Dawn pivoted, staring at Giles. "Dad! Stop, you'll kill her!"

Giles took a step forward, but stopped as Buffy gasped. Voldemort had pricked her throat with his dagger, to show his seriousness. "You will not use her as a weapon for evil," Giles whispered, "no matter what it takes. No deal."

"You killed Harry... you're going to kill Willow and Buffy... Giles... _DAD_, why?!" Dawn let out a sob.

There wasn't time to explain. "Dawn, get out of the circle. I won't lose you, too."

"But Buffy..." Though protesting, Dawn crawled out of the way.

"Buffy is supposed to be dead." He choked. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with her. She was confused, yes, but who wouldn't be? She was there, in the flesh, living and breathing... and if she died again, it would be his fault. Another death on his conscience. "Voldemort, this is the last chance I'm giving you. Let the Slayer go, or the witch dies... and so do you."

The Dark Lord grinned, and his eyes glinted red. "You can't kill me. There's a prophecy. Only Potter can do it... and you've managed to take him out of the picture very nicely."

------

"No, I'm perfectly fine," Harry said, trying not to gloat. His wand in hand, slipped to him when Mr. Giles pretended to kill him, Harry vaulted to his feet. The fake blood on his neck was starting to fade – the transfiguration would only last for so long – and he figured waiting any later to make his move would end in someone's death. "_Petrificus totalis!_" Harry cried. At the same moment, Giles and Willow fired off spells – Willow's hit Giles in the arm, but Mr. Giles' struck Willow, and she went down, stunned.

Voldemort was faster than Harry. He lunged out of the way, and managed to evade the path of the curse. However, the movement had an unintended side effect – in his haste to avoid harm, the knife slid across the Slayer's throat.

Blood gushed. Dawn screamed.

Voldemort dropped the knife and made a run for it, into the adjoining room. Harry watched, frozen, as the Slayer's body lurched to the side and, without Voldemort's support, went crashing toward the floor. In the split second following, Harry didn't know what to do: follow Voldemort, and try to stop him, or try to help Dawn's sister?

Harry didn't get to make a decision. Before the body reached the floor, the blonde vampire caught her. Despite the appearance of weakness, the vampire curled around the Slayer's body. He lowered his head toward her bleeding throat.

"Spike!" Mr. Giles roared. He staggered to his feet at the edge of Harry's vision, wounded arm a mass of blood, and stumbled toward the pair. "Leave her alone!" Harry crossed to help Mr. Giles, finally realizing what was happening – the vampire was finishing Voldemort's job.

And then the vampire looked up. His face was hideously formed, inhuman, and red stained his lips. He smiled. "Relax, Watcher. It's under control."

Mr. Giles went for his wand... and stopped. When Harry looked back at the Slayer's body, he noticed she was looking around, touching her neck, and staring at Spike. "What did you just do?" she asked.

"He closed the wound," Giles said. "Vampires... their saliva, it's a coagulant... God, Spike, I'm sorry..."

Spike shrugged and proceeded to ignore Mr. Giles. "I had to save you, pet," he said to the Slayer. "I could never watch you die again."

Finally, Dawn managed to react. She hugged her sister and the vampire, sobbing the whole time, then limped across the room to Harry and pulled him into a hug. "I thought you were dead!" she wailed. "I couldn't stand it!"

"Fake blood," Harry explained. "Your dad transfigured it. It's all fake. I'm fine."

Dawn reached over and pulled Mr. Giles into the hug, too. "I should kill you both for doing that!"

When the door burst open, none of them were ready for a battle... but there was no need for it. Remus Lupin slipped in, accompanied by half a dozen Aurors. "Where's Voldemort?" he demanded.

"Gone," Harry admitted. "But we're all okay."

"Not okay," Mr. Giles said. "Not all of us." He pulled out of Dawn's hug, after giving her a kiss on the forehead, and crossed the room to kneel at the Dark Witch's side. "We're not okay, but we will be." He gently touched the girl's hair. Then, standing again, he turned to face Lupin. "I want to take my girls home," he said.

No one argued.


	12. Epilogue: Slytherin Pride

A/N: Thanks so much for reading! This is the last bit, no sequel, so please leave a note to let me know what you thought. Enjoy!

Epilogue: Slytherin Pride

September 22

Dear Buffy,

How's Slaying? Have you killed many vampires lately? Averted an apocalypse I should know about?

Things are fine here. I've been hanging around with some of the Ravenclaws most of the time, since most of the people in my House are pretty angry with Dad for changing sides. Er. Giles. Should I call him Giles? I mean, everybody here thinks he's really our dad, which isn't exactly a bad thing, and I kinda think he's been a better dad than Dad... but I know it weirds you out.

Harry says it doesn't matter, and I should call Giles whatever I want. He's reading over my shoulders. Silly Gryffindor boy. But I guess he's right.

Well, Dad's doing pretty good with the whole teaching bit. I mean, I know everything he's talking about, what with you being the Slayer, but most of the other students here think he's pretty cool. I'm still having trouble with Potions, but I blame Snape for it. I think he hates me because Harry's my boyfriend, even though I'm a Slytherin and Dad saved his butt. Bloody ungrateful if you ask me.

Oh, Tara says hi. I saw her and Willow this weekend. Willow's doing okay. She's still in the hospital, cause I don't think the Minster's gonna let her be out and about until she's totally de-brainwashed. Tara doesn't mind, though, and she likes living in London. She's gonna try to convince Willow to stay here, one she's better. She thinks using a wand is the coolest thing ever.

How are Xander and Anya? Are they still planning to get married? I think it's wicked cool, even if they didn't tell us earlier. We'll be there for the wedding. I mean, we just have to floo over, not a biggie.

So, spill about the new Slayer. What's her name, Kennedy? Yeah, Harry says that's what you said it was. I don't remember. Weird name. Is she any good? Is her Watcher okay? Dad was worried when he heard they were sending one. If the new Watcher's evil, just tell me, and I'll come over and beat him up for you.

Dad says hi. So does Harry. I've gotta go do my Potions homework before Snape flips. Send some California sunshine, I miss it.

Love, Dawn


End file.
